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THE 



RHODE ISLAND COTTAGE, ^ 



A NARRATIVE Oi* FACTS; ^ 



m 



LETTER ON THE ISLE OP WIGHT. A 

. Illustrated by an EngfaTing. ^^ 



BY JAMES C. RICHMOND, 
A Presbyter of the Church, 






ISLE OF WIGHT : 



t»RIXTED BY B. J. DENYEH, NEWPORT. |s 
1849. I 



'mmwi^MB 



THE 

RHODE ISLAND COTTAGE j 

OR, A 

GIFT FOR THE CHILDREN OF SORROW: 
A NARRATIVE OF FACTS. 



BY JAMES C' RICHMOND, 

M 
A Presbyter of the Church, 



First English, from the Second American Edition. 

^-4jEWP0RT, isle of WII3HT: 4'' 

PRINTED BY R. J. DENYER, PYLE STREET. 
1849. 



THE TWO AMERICAN EDITIONS OF THIS NARRATIVE 
WERE DEDICATED 

TO THE DAUGHTERS OF THE LATE JOHN JAY, 

WHO HAVE BEEN EYE WITNESSES OF ITS TRUTH : 
THIS EDITION IS INSCRIBED 

TO MY FRIENDS IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT. 



NOTICE FROM THE " NEW YORK CHURCHMAN." 



CYNTHIA TAGGART. 

A sketch of this most remarkable sufferer has been 
lately published under the the title of " The Rhode Island 
Cottage," which may be ascribed, we presume, to the pen 
of the Rev. James C. Richmond, who has so benevolently 
interested himself in her behalf. The narrative is one of 
mournful and intense interest, and written with beautiful 
and affecting simplicity. The object of it we understand to 
be, to excite an interest in the public mind in favor of the 
poems of Miss Taggart,* an edition of which was pub- 
lished sometime since, a part of which yet remains unsold.f 
The object is most praiseworthy; and while we heartily 
commend "The Rhode Island Cottage,*' as a narrative 
which cannot be read without tears by any not devoid of 
all human sympathies, we would entreat every reader to 
let the interest awakened by the narrative lead him to 
inquire after the poems, if, indeed, he do not already pos- 
sess them* These poems are on many accounts remark- 
able : they are the productions of a native and untutored 
genius : in their images and allusions they are singularly 
characteristic of humble life, as it exists in our own coun- 
try : they are the essays of one who for eleven years has 
been the victim of unremitted anguish, in comparison of 
which all the ordinary forms of sickness and sorrow vanish 
into nothing : they pour forth a continued flow of sorrow 
in a versification seldom harsh, always perspicuous, often 
strikingly peculiar in sentiment and diction, and occasion- 
ally disclosing gleams of poetic genius ; and they are still 
more remarkable as the monuments of the efficacy of the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ in mitigating with consolation, and 
even illumining with joy, the most appalling, and, in respect 

* An English edition of the Poems of Cynthia Taggart 
is in the press. 

t The whole of two large American editions, both of 
this sketch and of the poems, have been exhausted. 



6 



to worldly relief, the most desperate extremities of human 
wretchedness. One further recommendation they have: 
they have been published by some friends, whom Provi- 
dence has raised up to succour the sufferer, with the bene- 
volent intention of avertmg the evils of poverty and 
dependence from one whose life, even without this aggra- 
vation, is no better than a propagated agony. "With all 
these claims to notice, might we not expect that every 
American and every Christian would own the poems of 
Cynthia Taggart ? Or must it be left to a future generation 
to pay an empty tribute to sorrow and genius, which the 
present have passed by in apathy ? 

From One of the poems of some length, entitled " The 
Heart's Desire," we will venture to detach the following 
verses, and insert them under the title of an Ode to Health. 
Let the reader turn to No. 48 of the Rambler, and compare 
with them a celebrated Ode to Health, one of the beautiful 
remnants of Greek antiquity, as translated and eulogized 
by the Colossus of English literature, and see how tame and 
spiritless is the exquisite polish of the Grecian specimen, 
by the side of the impassioned burst of prayer, the touches 
so true to life, the descriptions so intensely powerful, 
wrought by nature, as it were, in the strains of the obscure 
inmate of the Rhode Island Cottage I How insipid the 
wish, 

Mera cov vaoijxi 
To \€nrofJL€Pov J^ioraSy 

compared with the full-souled adjuration that sues, 

** By all the pangs of wasting life. 
By gasping nature's chilling strife. 

To gain one lingering view 
Of thy fair aspect, mildly sweet. 
And kiss from off thy airy feet 

The healing drops of dew." 

How wretchedly impertinent and common-place seems 
the allusion to the influence of health in enhancing the 
pleasures of wealth and power, and birth and love, com- 
pared with the touching lamentation of domestic loneli- 



ness, and banishment from social enjoyments, induced by- 
protracted disease : 

" And separate from the household band. 

Disconsolate and lone, 
With no sweet converse's social charm 
One pain imperious to disarm, 

And quell the rising moan." 

The truth and force of the allusion in this stanza can 
hardly be conceived but by those who have beheld a 
fellow- creature cut off from social sympathies, and com- 
pelled month after month, and year after year, to turn the 
energies of a vigorous mind in upon itself, and feed upon 
its own agonies, 

" While every thought that filled the brain 
Gave maddening energy to pain." 



an ©ire to f^^altfi. 

O Health ! thy succouring aid extend. 
While low, with bleeding heart, I bend, 
And on thine every means attend, 

And sue with streaming eyes : 
But more remote thou fliest away. 
The humbler I thine influence pray, 

And expectation dies. 

Twice three long years of life have gone, 
Since thy loved presence was withdrawn 

And I to grief resigned. 
Laid on the couch of lingering pain. 
Where stern disease's torturing chain 

Has every limb confined. 

. And separate from the household band, 

Disconsolate and lone. 
With no sweet converse's social charm 
One pain imperious to disarm, 
Or quell the rising moan," 



I lie in hopeless doom to grieve. 
While no kind office can relieve, 
Nor can I sustenance receive 
But from another's hand. 

While anguish veils the body o*er. 
And balmy sleep is known no more. 
And every thought that thrills the brain 
Gives frantic energy to pain. 
And the cold dew-drops copious drain 
Through every opening, rending pore. 

Health ! wilt thou not, for the black stream. 
That bears keen poison through the veins, 

A cordial swift prepare ? 
Bring back their own bright crimson glow. 
And the true circulating flow. 

And mitigate despair ? 

Once more my pleadings I renew. 
And with my panting breath I sue. 

Goaded by potent pain. 
By all the pangs of wasting life. 
By gasping nature's chilling strife, 

To gain one lingering view 
Of thy fair aspect, mildly sweet. 
And kiss from off thine airy feet 

The healing drops of dew. 

O bathe my burning temples now. 
And cool the scorching of my brow. 

And light the rayless eye ; 
My strength revive with thine own might. 
And with thy footsteps firm and light, 
O bear me to thy radiant height. 

Where, soft reposing, lie 
JMild peace, and happiness, and joy, 
And nature's sweets, that never cloy, 
Unmixed with dii;eful pain's alloy ; 

Leave me not thus to die 1 



THE 

RHODE ISLAND COTTAGE. 



The approaching dissolution of a very dear 
mother had cast a deep shade of sorrow over 
the minds of two brothers. The younger of 
them relates the following unadorned inci- 
dents, as they then occurred, in the fervent 
hope, and with an earnest prayer, that they 
may be to many who are sorrowing, as they 
proved to him, a lesson to bear with resig- 
nation and meekness the trials sent by a 
merciful God, to wean our souls from the 
world, and raise them to a heavenly and 
enduring inheritance. He trusts that many 
sons and daughters of suffering may thence 
derive encouragement to receive, with de- 
vout submission, afflictions that dwindle into 
trifles, compared with the sore and heavy 
burden that God is pleased to lay upon these 
children of sorrow. 

On a pleasant day in the spring of 1832, 
we determined to leave the noisy and bust- 
ling town for the more tranquil scenes that 
surround the rural graves of our forefathers. 
Our way lay across that beautiful island 
which has sometimes been called the Garden 
of America. And indeed, the peaceful vale 



10 



which lies within it, refreshed by cool, health- 
ful breezes from the sea, and enlivened by 
the waves, whose snow-crested summits may 
be seen, and their solemn roar heard, as 
they roll in and break upon the distant 
beach ; the green meadows, brightening in 
the sudden glances of the sun, now hidden, 
and now beaming forth again from the hasty 
clouds, while the flitting shadows are seen 
running along the sloping hill-side, or quickly 
crossing the little valley ; the fertile fields, 
relieved at intervals by clustering trees, or 
here and there adorned with a quiet habita- 
tion, whose industrious and healthy inmates, 
dispersed over the valley, give animation to 
the scene ; the birds and the flocks that 
may here feed or sing undisturbed ; the 
bright and lively rivulets that are heard 
murmuring over the pebbles, or seen open- 
ing upon you unexpectedly, and therefore 
doubly refreshing and delightful; the sight 
of a sail at sea, or the beautiful country-seats 
on the tops of the distant hills, which but 
just remind you of the troubled world you 
have left behind : these, and a thousand un- 
told charms, demand for Rhode Island a 
little more than that passing tribute of ad- 
miration which we bestow on all the beau- 
tiful works of God. 

Through these scenes wound our way, un- 



11 



til, at length, it brought us to a bank, over* 
looking the eastern arm of the ocean, which 
there separates the island from the main- 
land. In the beautiful bay beneath us lay 
the ferry-boat ; but unfortunately, as we then 
thought, the ferryman was absent. While 
one of the brothers remained on the rocks 
to raise a signal for the boat on the opposite 
side, the other approached a small farm- 
house, on the hill that rises gently sloping 
from the shore, for the purpose of trying the 
hospitality of its inhabitants. 

And here he must pause to acknowledge 
the infinite goodness and wisdom of Him 
whose ways are not as ours, and who order- 
eth every step of man to the accomplishment 
of His beneficent purposes, although, as in 
the present case, the unconscious instrument 
see nought in the Providence of God but 
disappointment and delay. Had the ferry- 
man been at home as usual, the subjects of 
this humble sketch might have remained 
in their poverty and obscurity^ unseen, un- 
heard of, and unassisted. Had he been at 
his post, as we several times fruitlessly 
wished, a gifted creature of God might have 
lain till this hour, in a measure undiscovered, 
the powers which her Creator bestowed 
might have died with her unknown, and the 
instructive example of a suflering, but emi- 
nently resigned and Christian family, would 



13 



have been lost to the aflflicted. Many a 
time from childhood had we- crossed that 
ferry, and the ferryman had never once been 
absent. Never before had v^e occasion to 
visit this Rhode Island Cottage. 

On approaching the fence that formed the 
only entrance tp a small patch of ground, 
cultivated as a garden, I observed in front 
of the house a feeble old man, bowed down 
with the weight of sickness and of length- 
ened days. With some difficulty, on account 
of his deafness, I drew his attention from 
the little household cares over which he was 
bending. He kindly approached the fence, 
and leaning upon it, entered into conversa- 
tion, which soon showed that his mind was not 
altogether of the common order. On my 
remarking the superiority of his language 
over his station and opportunities, the old 
man quietly replied, with some slight appear- 
ance of conscious intelligence, *' Why, Sir, 
there are two things which J always attended 
to, the right meaning of words, and the right 
spelling of words." 

" These are certainly sufficient," I replied, 
^' if you always put them, as I observe you 
do, in their right places. But when you 
were young the country was distracted by 
the revolution, and you had neither leisure 
nor opportunity for education." 

** 'Tis true, Sir, I was engaged in hard 



13 



struggles, and made hair-breadth escapes in 
the old war, but God carried me safely 
through them all ; and as he gave me a wish 
to learn, and to read, I found time and 
books, and obtained some knowledge, with 
the help of a good father, who knew the 
advantages of learning. They say the Tag- 
garts were always inclined to be a reading 
family, Sir.'' 

He then entered into a short history of 
his revolutionary days, which he wrote out 
just before his death, and which has been 
prefixed to his daughter's poems. It soon 
appeared that he was intimately acquainted, 
and, during the war, had lived with some of 
the very men whose graves we were about 
to visit. When I disclosed my name, he 
exclaimed, ** Why, Sir, you are one of our 
own folks !" and his kindness was increased, 
if possible, towards a descendant of one of 
his old comrades in war. But though wil- 
ling and anxious to comply with my request 
to furnish us with food, he expressed his 
fears lest he should be unable, on account of 
the state of his family. *' I suppose. Sir," he 
said, ** that I have the most afflicted family 
on this island. I have one daughter who 
has been lying on her bed in that house, 
more than eleven years,"* and the physicians 
* Now twenty- eight years. 



14 



can do nothing for her. Her sister has 
worn herself out in watching over her, and 
now she is a cripple, and has to be moved 
about the house. Another daughter is de- 
ranged, and my wife is old and feeble, and 
troubled with a bad cough. She does all 
she can. Sir ; but I cannot work as I used 
to do : and I have had very heavy doctors' 
bills to pay. It is but a little while since I 
paid more than four hundred dollars. I 
have been obliged to mortgage my little 
farm ; and it is almost all gone. I hope it 
will be enough to carry us through this 
world to a better. It is all right. I know 
that the Supreme Ruler of the universe does 
what is best for us." 

As the venerable old man concluded, and 
I looked upon his silver locks, I could not 
heIp4oving him. My interest was the more 
strongly excited because I thought I dis- 
covered in his appearance, language, and 
piety, some resemblance to the good Dairy- 
man. Indeed, I have often wished the whole 
scene might be delineated by that beloved 
and excellent disciple of Christ, who has 
described, with so much feeling and beauty, 
similar cases, which show that we should 

*' Judge not the Lord by feeble sensr, 
But trust him for his grace ; 
Behind a frowning providence, 
He hides a smiling face," 



15 



But he is gone to his rest, aod cannot behold 
a scene peculiarly fitted to awaken the in- 
terest of all who delight to know *^ the 
Annals of the Poor." Had he looked upon 
that humble cottage, it would have drawn 
from his devout mind some pious remem- 
brance of the Master who had not where to 
lay his head. Had he gazed on the broad 
ocean which you may see from the cottage- 
door, he would have recognized the emblem 
of God's infinity in its boundless expanse, 
seen his peace reflected from its calm blue 
bosom, or heard the terrible voice of the 
Lord in the majestic thundering of its wa- 
ters against the rough rocks of the opposite 
Seconet. He could not have looked upon 
the beautiful and peaceful Mount Hope, 
without reminding you of the loveliness of 
Mount Zion, and the eternal peace of hea« 
ven. He could not have cast his eye upon 
the rock,* where the Indian warrior smoked 
the calumet of peace with the white man, 

♦ Colonel Church, the boldest of the early warriors 
against the Indians, made a treaty with Awashonks, the 
queen -sachem of the Seconets, at a rock on the farm of 
Edward Richmond, 1675. This treaty destroyed the power, 
and ruined the hopes of King Philip. A Poem on Me- 
tacomet, or King Philip, by the author of this sketch, is 
in the press. See the History of Colonel Church, by his 
Son. See also *' An Historical Memoir of the Colony of 
NeW'Plymouth, by Francis Baylies,'* vol, ii. partiii. p. 146. 



16 



without lamenting that the fated race was 
passing from the earth, and that the white 
man had told the Indian little, very little, 
of the great peace to be made at the cross 
of Christ, the Rock of Ages. 

But he rests from his labours^ and we 
would not call him back, no, not even to do 
that which another may accomplish unwor- 
thily, to tell ** the simple Annals of the 
Poor.'* No, not even to behold face to face 
the countenance of that modern disciple of 
heavenly charity, whom, having not seen, we 
love: 

*' Might one wish bring thee, would I wish thee here ? 
I would not trust my heart*; the dear delight 
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might ; 
But no, what here we call our life is such. 
So little to be loved, and thou so much. 
That I should ill requite thee to constrain 
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.'* 

Sure I am, that I shall be pardoned this 
passing remembrance of the *^ Friend" of 
•^ the Cottager," though it has detained me 
a moment from the cottager himself. 

This good old man was a deacon in the 
Baptist denomination. When shall all that 
bear the name of Christ be filled with the 
spirit of charity that appeared in his answer 
to my half doubtful inquiry ? — '* I have a 
brother below who is a Christian minister, 



17 



but he is of the Church, and perhaps you do 
not desire that he should visit your aflBiicted 
family ?" * O, Sir, with great joy," he re- 
plied, *' for though there are many paths, 
there is only one Lord and one heaven.*' 
Indeed, there is also but one path, * I ara 
the Way, and the Truths and the LifeJ 
I hastened down the hill to my brother 
on the shore, and in a few moments we 
were standing before the door of the cottage. 
It was opened by the old man himself. 
Never shall I forget the appearance of this 
aged soldier, who had contended for the 
rights of his country in his morning days, 
and, in the noon and e>rening of life, had 
girded on the sword of the Spirit, and faith- 
fully fought the battles of Christ. He was 
now, as it afterwards proved, about to lay 
aside the earthly implements of his Christian 
warfare, to receive the crown of victory and 
glory from the hands of the great Captain of 
his salvation. 

He had removed the hat from his head, 
which bore the furrows of nearly seventy- 
eight summers. The white locks were care- 
fully combed and fell on each side of his 
temples. It was evident that he now felt 
all the dignity of a patriarch in receiving an 
ambassador from his heavenly Prince. There 
was something indescribable in his elevated 



18 



demeanour, which seemed to say to my brother, 
**I know that you are coming on the highest 
embassy of God to man; that you are a 
herald of the consolation, and pardon, and 
peace of the gospel, and I would stand at 
the door of my house and bid a worthy wel- 
come to the servant of my Lord." In the 
impressive service appointed by the Church 
for her afflicted children, 

" Peace be to this house, and to all that dwell in it." 
My heart responded, Amen. Walking 
slowly before us into the room, the old man 
said, ** Wife, here are some of our own 
folks come to see us," and we were wel- 
comed by a feeble and aged woman, who 
seemed worn out with fatigue and watching, 
and troubled with a consumptive cough. 
The old man left the room, but soon re- 
turned, moving with difficulty his eldest 
daughter, the cripple, by rocking the chair 
in which she sat from side to side. He then 
placed himself by the clergyman, and from 
the conversation that ensued, it was evident 
that his heart was at rest, in contemplation 
of the transient nature of earthly sorrows, 
and the never ending joys of heaven. 

^^ These great afflictions are doubtless in- 
tended," said the minister, *' to tree us from 
our attachment to the world, and to set our 
minds on the things above." **Doubtless," 



19 



replied the old man, as he quoted the scrip- 
tures slowly, and with solemn reverence, 
*' for we have here no continuing city, but 
we seek a house not made with hands, eter- 
nal in the heavens." 

This spirit of entire resignation, which 
shone forth triumphantly in every sentence 
uttered by the good and venerable man, was 
indeed delightful. The character of the 
mother was, perhaps, less chastened and 
subdued. She was, it may be, under the 
necesity of being more like Martha, " careful 
and troubled," in providing for us. Indeed, 
she has since confessed, that when she first 
saw me standing by the fence, in conversation 
with her husband, she exclaimed, *^ O, there 
is a stranger ; I hope he will not come in to 
see our poverty and misery," She now ac- 
knowledges that the stranger's steps were 
guided thither by God, She soon placed a 
table before us, neatly covered and furnished 
with those little delicacies that are found ready 
for the expected, or the un-oxpected guest, in 
almost every New-England cottage, but 
which surprised us here, for the house is on 
a very secluded spot,* distant from any road, 
and seldom visited. Yet in all this obscurity, 

• The family were afterwards compelled to leave this 
house, and it has been removed to another place not far 
rom the old site. 



20 



affliction, and poverty, we were most hospi- 
tably entertained. Our hostess was not a- 
little disturbed, when it was discovered that 
her insane daughter, Maria, had hidden tlie 
tea-spoons. As she hastily went to the door, 
and in a veiy shrill but feeble voice, called 
her amiable little grand-danghter, Elizabeth, 
whose mother is now no more, I thought the 
sharp tones would go through my very heart. 
The eldest daughter, the cripple, still re- 
mained bowed down in her chair by the stove ; 
but in the calmness and resignation of her 
countenance you might read a delightful 
eulogy on the religion of Jesus Christ. She 
was feeble in body but strong in faith. A 
heavenly tranquillity beamed from her coun- 
tenance, such as the prosperous and happy 
of the world seldom know ; but which is the 
peculiar gift of the Saviour to his humble 
children. And few persons have attained to 
greater humility, meekness, and forbearance 
than Elizabeth T. Her cousin, the ferryman 
before mentioned, once said to me, ** Nobody 
knows the worth of Betsey ; nothing will of- 
fend her. Sir ; for I believe she never was 
put out in her life," 

It was pleasing to meet in this humble 
dwelling several old and useful books, one of 
which appeared to have been brought over 
by the Pilgrims. Another was the quaint. 



21 



but, with the Society of Friends, very favorite 
M'ork of William Penn, entitled, ^'No CrosS;, 
no Crown." 

Thus were these pious people endeavoring 
to fortify their souls in their present afflic* 
tions, by steadfastly fixing the eye of faith 
upon the future bliss of eternity, and by re- 
membering what an estimable clergyman once 
quoted in the midst of this suffering band, 
that ^* Christ Himself did bear the crown of 
thorns before he ascended to receive the 
crown of glory" 

After the table was removed, the old man 
led the way into the sick chamber of his other 
daughter^ Cynthia. In a small room, contain- 
ing but one window, on a couch, which had 
been her almost constant resting place- 
resting place, did I say ? rather, the solitary 
witness of unnumbered hours of the keenest 
anguish, lay h'er emaciated frame, as it had 
lain for eleven years ! What a lesson for the 
complaining, who, blessed with health, and 
living in the midst of prosperity and comforts, 
are at a loss for the invention of new 
pleasures ! What a lesson for the sick who 
suffer lightly or have not suffered long. O, 
hear it, ye who murmur at God's allotments. 
This afHicted being suffers more than ima- 
gination can conceive. Sleep never visits her 
as a balm, but brings, in its momentary ap- 



proaches, visions of horror that are changed, 
in her waking hours, to unspeakable anguish ; 
often resembling, to use her own expression^ 
**the tearing of twenty pieces of flesh from 
her body by pincers.** Nor is any portion 
of this suffering imaginary, as the healthy are 
gometimes inclined cruelly to suggest. Many 
physicians have declared her case beyond 
their power, and there are among them men 
of distinguished science, and of well known 
feeling, who cannot read her affecting 
** Appeal to tho Faculty/' and leave any 
reasonable measures for her relief untri/ed. 
Yet this suffering and comparatively unedu- 
cated woman, has at last been able, in reliance 
upon the promises of <Sod^ to seek relief by 
flying to her Saviour, whom she had acknow- 
ledged in her heart, though not before men, 
ere she was stretched upon the bed of agony. 
She has devoted a few of her least distracted 
hours, not to the cultivation of the poetical 
genius which God has given her, for this 
talent she hardly seems conscious of possess- 
ing, but to the simple expression of her 
faelings in the verses, that, during this long 
period, she has dictated chiefly to her father. 
He alone seemed to set a just value on the 
rich gifts and treasures that lay in her mind. 
Of all this, however, we knew nothing. 
My brother approached the bed»side, and 



23 



seated himself near her head. The few ques- 
tions he asked were not answered without 
thought, as too often happens ; for pressing 
her trembling and wasted fingers upon her 
temples, as if to heep in the anguish, she 
replied, in a low voice, and very slowly,— 
**You ask your questions rather quickly, Sir; 
will you have the goodness to repeat the last?" 
*' Are you perfectly resigned to the will of 
God ?" She replied, ^* I fear. Sir, I cannot 
say that I am." This little trait of consider- 
ation and sincerity deeply interested us, and 
was the first proof that we had of the remark- 
able character of her mind. 

At length the solemn voice of prayer arose 
in that humble dwelling. My brother knelt 
at the bed-side, while the old man, according 
to his custom, leaned on the back of his chair. 
The mother was near* The cripple, Eliza- 
beth, was placed at the door, but also in the 
next room, for the small sick chamber would 
admit but three. Never shall I forget those 
impressive moments, and, least of all, the 
solemn benedictions in the affecting and ap- 
propriate Service of the ** Visitation of the 
Sick." * The Almighty Lord, who is a most 
strong tower to all those who put their trust 
in Him ; to whom all things in heaven, in 
earth, and under the earth, do bow and obey, 
be now and evermore thy defence ; and make 



g4 



thee know and feel that there is none other 
name under heaven given to man, in whom, 
and through whom, thou mayest receive health 
and salvation, but only the name of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, Unto God*s gracious 
mercy and protection we commit thee : The 
Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord 
make His face to shine upon thee, and be 
gracious unto thee : The Lord lift up His 
countenance upon thee, and give thee peace 
both now and evermore. Amen.* 

As we withdrew, I looked through the 
chamber window, and thought to myself: 
How often have I gazed upon the ceaseless 
heaving billows of that same ocean, and sailed 
upon its bosom many a weary day, in search 
of the interesting wonders that the world 
contains, and now I am returned to the 
scenes of my childhood, to find, in a cottage, 
the most interesting of all. Yet this Rhode 
Island Cottage I have often passed, in utter 
ignorance of its inmates. 

It was not till we retired to the other room 
that we discovered the remarkable fact, that 
the suflTerer possessed a large share of that 
gift, believed to be a peculiar boon of heaven ; 
for, to our question, **How does your 
daughter Cynthia pass the time ?" the old 
man replied by producing a number of well 
worn and soiled manuscript poems. At first 



25 



we read a few of them, through mere kindess 
to the father ; not thinking that so pure a gem 
had been hidden among these barren rocks. 

But in this humble sketch we will say little 
of her poems; for they are now before the 
world, and speak for themselves. Suffice it 
to say, they are the poetry of truth and are 
peculiar, because her sufferings are peculiarly 
her own. 

But we must pause, to acknowledge the 
goodness of God, who, in taking the father 
from his helpless family, prepared, in the gift 
bestowed upon that very daughter, whose long 
sickness had contributed to reduce them to 
want, the means of support and comparative 
comfort, for enjoyment they could not expect. 

We departed, leaving a small sum, not as 
a remuneration for their trouble, (for that 
would have deeply wounded the feelings of 
the good old man,) but as the first subscription 
for the poems of his daughter, of whose gifts 
the fond father was justly proud, and in whose 
goodness the veteran Christian delighted. 

As we crossed the water, I said to the 
ferryman, •'William, you have told me of 
almost everything under the sun; all that 
you knew about the serpent that had nearly 
crushed the Roman army, and a hundred such 
things ; but you never said a word of your 
sick cousin on that hill," How full of human 



26 



nature was his answer ! **She has been sick 
a great while, Sir." Man becomes hardened 
to sorrows which he often sees, or has long 
known. The sufferer says somewhere in her 
poems, 

** The sleepless night, the wretched day 

To months and years prolonged. 
Drive all one's pityiiag friends away, 

That once benignant thronged." 

It was deeply affecting, as we sailed smooth- 
ly along, to look back upon that cottage. 
There it stood, as quiet upon the gentle ele- 
vation as any of the neighbouring dwellings. 
The smoke curled as beautifully from its 
chimney, and, had we not just left it, we 
might have imagined that as much prosperity, 
and happines, and health, dwelt beneath its 
roof as under theirs. But, oh! we had seen 
in that lowly habitation sharp disease busied 
in destroying all the hopes of its inmates for 
this world. This outward tranquillity and 
loveliness was but a shadow ; and yet it was 
an emblem, a holy emblem of the rest, and 
quietness, and joy of heaven, which, we trust, 
to these sufferers, and to all the followers of 
the Lamb, shall succeed the woes, turmoil, 
and tumult, that are within this lower world, 
and that lie hidden under an outward sem- 
blance of peace in many an afflicted bosom. 

Lowly cottage, farewell ! When the end 



£7 



shall be, may all thy iomates **look upon 
Zion, the city of their solemnities;'' may 
their, *^eyes see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, 
a tabernacle that shall not be taken down." 
There they will no longer need thy humble 
shelter, for they shall inhabit *^ a city having 
the glory of God ; a city that has no need of 
the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for 
the glory of the Lord will lighten it, and the 
Lamb is the light thereof." In that city they 
shall not be afflicted nor despised, for they 
•* shall walk with the kings of the earth, which 
bring their glory and honor into it ; and 
there they shall obtain joy and gladness, for 
sorrow and mourning shall flee away.'* And 
there, if we also be numbered among the 
redeemed, we shall need ye no more, little 
boat, and proud ocean, for •^the glorious 
Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers 
and streams, wherein shall go no galley with 
oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.'* 
Eighteen months rolled away before I 
could again visit this afflicted family,* during 
which time I had received holy orders. Their 
situation in the interval is touchingly and 
beautifully described by a clergyman who 
kindly visited them. '^ I heard of an afflicted 
family in the neighbourhood, and learning 
that a visit of condolence would be very ac- 
ceptable, 1 determined to make one. 1 was 



28 



directed to a small house, far from any road, 
on the side of a hill, descending to an arm of 
the sea, which separates this island Irom the 
adjoining main-land. The first person I saw, 
on approaching the house, was a young woman 
at the door, who, as soon as she perceived 
me, uttered some incoherent words, and dis- 
appeared. I knocked ; was admitted, and 
soon introduced to the family. 

** It was composed of a venerable old man, 
his wife, and three daughters. Here I found 
sickness, distress, and poverty, in conflict 
with religion, peace, and purity; and I rejoice 
to say the latter appeared to triumph. 

**The old man was feeble, and broken in 
constitution and health. His * hoary head,' 
however, was * a crown of glory,' for it was 
found in * the way of righteousness.' 

**He had been an otHcer in the revolu- 
tionary war, and his last days were mad© 
anxious by endeavors to obtain a pension. 
He succeeded about a year since; but has 
now gone to serve a more generous Master. 

**His wife was a confirmed invalid, and 
could, with the greatest diflSculty, discharge 
her domestic duties. 

**The three daughters were the principal 
sufferers. One was deprived of reason; the 
other two were emaciated by disease, and had 
been confined to their beds, one for two, and 



29 



the other for seven years * Medical attend- 
ance, medicines, and loss of time in nursing 
his children, had consumed all the property 
of the good old man, except the small tene- 
ment which he occupied, and which, ere long, 
he expected to exchange for a still narrower 
one. But, for the credit of religion, and for 
the comfort of all who may be called to pass , 
through Uhe fire' of such trials, I can say, 
that this veteran soldier of Christ and his 
family seemed supported by the consolations 
of the gospel. On these I conversed at large, 
and with each member of the family ; and 
endeavored to lighten, by every means in my 
power, the heavy burdens of these poor 
pilgrims. 

*' The father, the mother, and one of the 
daughters appeared cheerful and resigned ; 
but the other daughter seemed greatly de- 
pressed. She had been now seven years'^ on 
a bed of exquisite pain. Her hair had turned 
gray by the unmitigated anguish of her head. 
Sleep had long deserted her, and she seemed 
to have been in the act of martyrdom for 
years. Confined for so long a time to her 
bed, incapable of occupation or amusement, 
at times, even of devotion, she struggled hard 
to say, * Thy will be done.' She, however, 

* She had been ill eleven (now 28) and almost bed-ridden 
seven (now 24) years. 



30 



appeared to confide in God, but was destitute 
of spiritual consolation.* 

** In this state, and in this place, she com- 
posed, from time to time, the poems which 
are about to be published. They are like the 
Lamentations of Jeremiah, or, more truly, 
like the complainings of Job ; and may serve 
to make both the prosperous and the aflSicted 
more grateful, and submissive to the allot- 
ments of Divine Providence. 

**The poems were composed and commit- 
ted to memory, chiefly in the night ; and 
were committed to writing by her lather and 
others, at their leisure. 

** A little garden before her window, the 
sun which rose and set, the winds of heaven 
which shook her cottage, and the ocean, 
whose * billowy anthem' was ever chanting at 
the foot of the hill, afforded the only variety 
to her thoughts. From these, and from her 
bodily sufferings, she draws subjects and 
illustrations for her muse. She remains to 
this day sunk in a bed of anguish, calm and 
patient. The blessed Saviour, I trust, sits 
beside her, as a 'refiner and purifier of silver ;' 
and when he perceives the work to be com- 

• She is DOW entirely resigned to God's will, and derives 
all her comfort from the promises of the gospel of Christ.— 
June 28th, 1835. — She has since been baptized, confirmed, 
and received the Holy Communion.— 1848. 



SI 



pleted, he will doubtless withdraw the fire. 
I am glad that the poems are to be published, 
for it is always a relief to make known our 
griefs ; and I cannot but hope, whether the 
number of her admirers be great or small^ 
that she will, by these poems^ secure to herself 
a few sympathizing friends. One I am sure 
she has already made ; who remains, dear 
sir, Always yours, 

B. C. Cutler.* 

No apology is made for introducing here 
a letter from Cynthia, to a lady who has been 
most benevolent and active in her cause. 

" October 28th, 183S. 
Dear Madam, 

1 have not strength at present to comply 
with your request respectmg an account of 
the nature and progress of my protracted 
diseases, and of my feelings under them, which 
have been anything rather than what I could 
wish ; though at all times, in my greatest ex- 
tremities, I have assuredly believed that the 
Judge of all the earth will do right, and that 
it is in mercy and compassion He afSicts; 
and have desired to be enabled to say, * It is 
the Lord; let him do as seemeth to him 
good.* If ever I am favored with strength and 
cpmposure sufficient, I will, with the utmost 



32 



readiness and alacrity, gratify your wishes. 
My dear father is very ill, and to appearance 
fast approachingthe bounds of mortality; but 
with prospects full of immortality and life. 
His faith is strong, and his soul sustained, in 
the midst of his bodily distresses, with heaven* 
ly consolations^ and peace that passeth under- 
standing ; which is a great encouragement 
and support to our minds, in the pain and 
anguish of being separated from a kind and 
precious parent. But it is our humble hope 
and earnest prayer that the separation may 
not be final; and that we may be again united 
in those blessed abodes, where there is no 
more paiup sin, nor sorrow, and where the 
Lord shall wipe away all tears from all eyes ; 
and it is a consoling reflection that this will 
be the happy lot of all those that love and 
obey the Saviour, 
With great esteem and cordial regard, 
Your friend, 

Cynthia Taggart." 

As the good old roan died shortly after, 
the conclusion of his memoir is inserted. 

^ We have experienced a long scene of 
affliction, in the protracted illness of three 
amiable daughters; one of whom, for a long 
time, has been, and still is, deprived of her 
reason ; another, for more than ten years. 



33 



has been, by a series of complicated disor- 
ders, confined helpless to her bed ; and a 
third, who more than three years since, on 
the day of the funeral obsequies of another 
sister, was seized with sudden illness, has 
also been confined from that time until the 
last few weeks. Thus, by the accumulation 
of misfortunes, I have been compelled to re- 
linquish my property to my indulgent creditors 
excepting a sufficiency for procuring a small 
tenement for my suffering family. But what, 
abundant reason have 1 to pour out my soul 
in grateful acknowledgement to the Author 
of all good, that in the midst of judgment he 
hath remembered mercy ; that he has taken 
my feet from the miry clay, and placed them 
on the Rock Christ Jesus. 

*^ In June, 1804, I united in Christian 
fellowship with the Second Baptist Church 
in Newport; and in Septembei, 1809, was 
chosen, by a unanimous vote, to the office of 
deacon. As an additional motive, to call on 
my soul to bless God's holy name, I have 
abundant reason to hope and firmly believe, 
that my three afflicted daughters have found 
the pearl of great price ; and when reason 
shall have regained its empire in the mind 
of my afflicted Maria, they will unite in pro- 
nouncing all things as loss and dross, in 
comparison with the knowledge of their ex- 



34 



alted Redeemer ; and^ with devout hearts 
and united voices, say with the inspired 
apostle, ^ Our light affliction, which is but for 
a moment, worketh for us a far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory.' 

William Taggart. 
Middletown, R. /, Octoher Mth, 1838." 

Another gentleman writes, ** I left their 
dwelling, having witnessed a scene of domes- 
tic suffering, and a form of domestic piety, 
which none can contemplate without being 
made better. The impression of it never 
will be effaced from my recollection. Amidst 
the discontents and repinings of society, I 
shall often recal the spectacle of this suffer- 
ing family, and think of the value of that 
religion which has been their support." 

When at length duty brought me near to 
them, I inquired of a gentleman at Newport, 
** Do you know anything of William Tag- 
gart T The answer was, ** He died at one 
o'clock this morning." It was Sunday, and 
nothing but the performance of my appro- 
priate duties would have kept me away from 
them till the next morning, when, accompa- 
nied by a benevolent lady, I again found 
myself passing over a part of the same road. 
But the family abode was no longer by the 



35 



sea-side ; for the old man had been com- 
pelled to sell his little farm to pay his debts, 
and had removed to a cottage about four 
miles from Newport, and situated on the 
principal road across the island. 

There he had purchased a small house, 
with a few acres of land. By the assistance 
of a most benevolent gentleman"^ of the city 
of New York, well known for his Christian 
kindness and generosity to the inhabitants of 
that part of the island, the aged soldier had 
obtained a pension, and now hoped to main- 
tain his family honorably and comfortably, 
when death came and took him away, and 
left his helpless wife and children to the 
Father of the fatherless and the widow's 
God. My brother, in company with the 
gentleman just mentioned, visited the family 
while the father lay on his dying bed. 

" Will you join with me in the prayers of 
the Church ?" said my brother. « By all 
means ; in the prayers of your own Church, 
Sir, if you please," said the dying man. He 
listened with deep attention, and seemed 
most fervently to pray in the language of that 
sublime and beautiful liturgy, which has, for 
ages, been hallowed by the lips of martyrs, 
and confessors, and holy men of old. When 
the impressive devotions were ended, the 
* Samuel Ward, deceased. 



86 



old man exclaimed, with the spirit of charity 
glowing on his countenance, * You can't 
have better prayers than those, Sir." Tbe 
language of the mother was most touching. 
When she saw her friends in their new 
cottage, she forgot all her afflictions, and in- 
stead of repining, dwelt upon the goodness 
of God. " O ! Mr. Ward," she said, clasp- 
ing her hands together, as is her custom 
when deeply moved, ^ how thankful we 
ought to be that we have a roof over our 
heads/' 

But to resume the thread of the narrative. 
The lady and myself entered the house of 
mourning. The first sight that met our eyes 
was the coffin of the good man, decently 
placed, and waiting the last solemn rites. 
He who had buried two beloved daughters 
but a short time before, and had not strength 
to follow the mother of his grand-child, 
Elizabeth, to the grave, was now gone to 
those who could not return to him. 

The cripple was at this time able to move 
about the house by herself, though not with- 
out difficulty, supporting herself from chair 
to chair. She met us at the door, recognized 
me, and soon told her mother of our coming. 
The aged and feeble widow seized my hands, 
joined them together, bent over them, and, 
as I felt the tears falling fast upon them, I 



37 



thought her heart would break, as she cried, 
^ He is gone ! he is gone ! and what shall I 
do ?'* After the first burst of grief had sub- 
sided, she began to relate, in the midst of her 
tears, the circumstances attending the last 
hours of her departed husband. He spent 
them in piously exhorting his neighbours. 
But he had not left this duty to be done on 
his death-bed alone ; for nearly thirty years 
he had confessed Christ before men, accord- 
ing to the light which he had, and he now 
called together those who had witnessed his 
consistent and pious life, that he might close 
his instructions, and having set to them the 
last hand of faith, seal them up in their pre- 
sence, with the impress and glowing hope of 
a blessed immortality. Very often it was 
supposed that his last moments were rapidly 
approaching, " and when we told him," said 
the weeping wife, " that he would wear him- 
self out, he only said, * let me spend my lasi 
hours in doing my Master's will ; let me tell 
my neighbours, before I go hence, to be no 
more seen, that they must be ready for the 
Lord at his coming. It will be soon to them 
also. O, Sir." she continued, " you cannot 
tell how he talked. He was so quiet and 
resigned. On the j&rst day of September he 
went out of his house for the last time, to 
pick out his grave. But he was too weak, 



38 



and had to come back again very soon. Then 
he said, * I cannot do it, but my friends will 
do it for me.' He never went out again. 
He wrote that account of his life a few days 
before he died.* He was soon confined to his 
room ; but sometimes, when the neighbours 
came in, he would raise himself up in his bed, 
and talk to them for hours, till we were afraid 
his strength was all gone. And O, Sir, how 
good he talked. He said he was going to 
a world that he had sometimes seen in his 
dreams^ and it was so much brighter and 
better than this world, that we must not be 
sorry for him. One night he waked, and 
told me he thought he had been in that glori- 
ous world ; that he should soon be there 
indeed, and that when he was gone to the 
better land, I must be comforted, and re- 
member he was happier than he was here, 
and that I must get ready to join him. But, 
O ! now he is gone ! What shall I do ? He 
is gone !" 

But who may measure the depth of this 
affliction to Cynthia 1 Her father had been 
almost the only person for many long, long 
years who had truly sympathized with her ; 
for although others felt for her physical suf- 
ferings, they were not all well aware of the 
exalted nature of the soul that was bowed 
• See Poems by Cynthia Taggart. 



39 



down beneath this load of bodily agony. It 
was her father who comforted her desponding 
hours. It was to her father that she had 
dictated those little effusions that solaced the 
weariness of her couch of sorrow. It was 
her father who had read to her the holy book 
of God, and sent up from her bed-side Ihe 
earnest prayer in her behalf. It was her 
father whom she would see in this world no 
more, 

Elizabeth led the way to her sister's 
chamber. Ascending a steep and narrow 
staircase, we found ourselves in a very small 
bed-room, nearly filled with the couch which 
the sufferer occupied. I approached the head 
of the bed. She knew me. The chill 
November blast rattled against and penetrated 
the loosened window. ^ Does not this cold 
wind give you pain?" " It cools my hrain^^ 
was her reply. I soon found that her mental 
suffering for her father's loss was very great ; 
for though murmurings were repressed, I 
perceived, by the quivering of her lips, that 
an inward agony was there. 1 spoke of the 
character of the departed ; of the victory 
he had now gained in the great battle of his 
Master ; of the consolation of the scriptures, 
giving hope that we shall meet in another 
world, and recognize our friends who have 
died in Christ Jesus, if only our own robes 



40 



be washed white in the blood of the Lamb.* 
At length Elizabeth said, *^ Cynthia, will 
you tell our friend the lines you made about 
our dear father?*' ^* They are not worthy 
of being repeated," she replied, ^* for they 
are only my feelingsJ^ But when I requested 
it, she dictated, slowly and distinctly, her 
trembling hand supporting her aching bead, 
and I wrote down, from her lips, line by 
line, the following: 

TO HER FATHER, 

SUPPOSED TO BE DYING. 

My Father ! sweet thy accents fall. 

And full of tender love ; 
These will thy suffering child recal, 

"When thou art blest above. 

Thou didst the words of joy and peace 

With faith and love combine. 
That taught my soul from earth to cease, 

And seek to follow thine. 

Oh ! shall no more my listening ear 

Catch that celestial voice ? 
No more thy heavenly converse hear. 

That bade my soul rejoice ? 

Those words of kind parental care. 

Which soothed my bed of pain ; 
That look of sympathy, oh 1 ne*er 

Shall I behold again I 

* 2 Samuel xii. 23 ; John xiv. 2, 3 ; 1 Thessalonians iv. 
13 — 18; V. lOj 2 Thessalonians ii. 1. 



41 



Where shall thy suffering child repair, 

To seek protection now ? 
Since Death's cold hand, so often near, 

Has touch'd thine honoured brow. 

Where shall this helpless, writhing form, 

A kind supporter find ? 
And where, oh! where, midst Sorrow's storrts, 

Shall rest this struggling mind ? 

Who will, like thee, direct the prayer 

With strong desire to heaven ; 
And grace unto thy children bear. 

To fervent pleadings given ? 

O blessed parent, guide, and friend ! 

Where shall my soul repose ? 
Our sky is dark ; what ills attend ! 

The world no succour shows. 

Where ?— but alas ! on earth how vain. 

To seek a cure for grief ; 
Yet One the helpless will sustain ; 

Thy God will give relief. 

Yes, He to whom thy soul shall rise. 

And be for ever blest, 
WilJ look in pity from the skies. 

And give thy children rest. 

Let any humane heart imagine her situ- 
ation. Separated only by the ceiling, and 
but a few feet distant from her father, yet 
that separation was for ever in this world. 
She could not be carried to him, and he, for 
four weeks previous to his death, could not 
come to her. Still she could hear his voice, 



42 



as he piously exhorted his neighbours, and 
that voice was to her so dear! She was 
soon to hear it no more. Often had the 
sorrowful tidings been brought to her, that 
her father was dying, and again he had re- 
vived. While the rest of the family were 
assembled around the bed of the dying man, 
she could but lie in her loneliness and think, 
— ''- My father still lives, but I shall never 
see him again !" Before our departure the 
funeral guests had assembled. Among them 
was a brother of the deceased, the dearest 
uncle of his children. He was also laid in 
his grave a few months afterwards, and this 
bereaved family was left with scarcely a hu- 
man stay. Having looked once more upon 
the countenance of the righteous dead, I 
went away, leaving the mourners to ** com- 
mit the body to the ground, earth to earth, 
ashes to ashes, dust to dust, looking for the 
general resurrection in the last day, and the 
life of the world to come." 

The Spring had covered his grave with 
the green grass, when I next stood by it, and 
the single flower which grew upon it, I 
plucked, and put into Cynthia's hand. The 
tears stood in her eyes as she looked upon 
and cherished this beautiful emblem of the 
resurrection of her father, who should arise 
from the dead to the new life of heaven, as 



43 



this humble flower had rcarisen, with the 
spring, from her father's grave. How often 
she had been lifted up on her pillow, that 
she might look upon the orchard trees, under 
which she had once seen her father walking, 
but he was there no more. 



ON A LITTLE FLOWER, 

WHICH GREW ON HER FATHER'S GRAVE. 



Sweet flower ! what bright spot gave thee birth ? 

Ah ! my sick heart replies, 
It grew upon the hallowed earth 

Where my lov*d parent lies. 

Ah 1 must his reverend form, beloved. 

Moulder within the tomb, 
Krom earth's bright joyous scenes removed, 

In Death's dark rayless gloom ? 

O, blessed parent, whence these tears 

That will not be repress'd ? 
I know thy soul in heaven appears. 

And thou supremely bless'd. 

Before the eternal throne of God 

I know thy spirit dwells. 
And, raptured in that bright abode. 

Sweet hallelujahs swells. 

But still my aching heart will bleed. 

And seek to find thee here : 
O, father, much thy love I need, 
. Forgive the falling tear. 



44 



This blooming flower, June's balmy breeze 

Recals to my sad mind. 
Where late I saw, beneath the trees. 

That reverend form reclin'd. 

While sweet benignity and grace 

In that calm aspect shone, 
Celestial love beam'd in thy face. 

And joys to earth unknown. 

While from those lips, Sublimest themes 

In holy ardour flowed, 
When faith portrayed the glorious scenes 

Of thy divine abode. 

And still those soul inspiring strains 
Ne'er ceased, but with thy breath ; 

When racked thy form with mortal pain. 
Sweet were thy words in death ! 

And may not this bright, golden flowef* 

Be a faint emblem, given 
Of hopes that cheered thy mortal hour. 

Bright with the rays of heaven ? 

When, at thy last expiring throe. 

Thy soul, on wings of love, 
Burst its confining bondage through, 

And sought the realms above i 

Beyond the regions of the skies, 

Those bright, immortal plains. 
Where love and pleasure never dies. 

Where Christ the Saviour reigns : 

There has thy ransomed soul, refined. 

With the adoring throng. 
Transported, in their praises joined. 

Their everlasting song. 

* This flower is commonly called a butter cup. 



45 



And ere that last departing scene, 

When fled thy soul above. 
Thou didst with hallowed joy serene, 

Dwell on redeeming love ; 

How oft, at evening's tranquil hour. 

That heavenly voice I heard. 
When thou, for mercy's healing power, 

The fervent prayer preferr'd ', 

While humble thanks, each morning rose. 

As incense to the skies. 
To Him who bore our heavy woes, 

And hears our suppliant cries. 

How oft, beside my painful bed. 

Of languishment and grief, 
Thou hast sustained my fainting head, 

And sought from heaven relief ! 

While sweetest sympathy divine, 

In thy loved aspect shone. 
When press'd my scorching hand in thine. 

And soothed each anguished moan ! 

Thou, with what glorious words ! didst raise, 
My drooping thoughts to heaven, 

And teach my soul on Him to gaze. 
Who endless life hath given. 

O, must that look, that voice, no more 

My fainting soul sustain ? 
Must still my aching heart deplore, 

And seek thee still in vain ? 

O, blessed parent, thou can'st ne'er 

To thy sad offspring come ; 
O, may thy helpless child prepare 

To gain thine heavenly home ; 



46 

There meet thee in ecstatic bliss. 

With all the ransomed throng. 
Arrayed in perfect righteousness ; 

Join, too, that holy song. 

To Him w ho fills the throne of heaven. 

The Lamb for sinners slain, 
Be glory, honour, blessings given. 

Eternally — Amen ! 

June2Ut, 1834. 

But she had now wholly given up her own 
will to the will of God. The third chapter 
of the Lamentations of Jeremiah was read to 
her, *' I am the man that hath seen affliction 
by the rod of his wrath." The tears fell, but 
they were more chastened than they were 
two years before. All her thoughts, whether 
expressed in the beautiful and appropriate 
language of her conversation, or flowing in 
numbers, were evidently resting in heaven. 
She still lives. And who that sits in her 
little chamber, or breathes the pure and 
refreshing air of heaven, which in summer 
surrounds that quiet dwelling, can doubt that 
the promise *^ thou wilt make all his bed in 
his sickness," (Ps. xli, 3,) will be fulfilled, 
till she come to the invisible land, whose 
•• inhabitants shall not say, I am sick/' 



47 



TO THE SPIRIT OF MY DEPARTED FATHER. 

O ! blessed Spirit, whither hast thou fled. 
Far from the pleasant earth and smiling skies. 
No more fresh odours, from the bright morn shed, 
Shall wake thy soul its matin hymn to rise. 

No more that form shall grace the calm repast. 
No more those words of holy ardour flow. 
While beaming faces, with hushed reverence, cast 
Fond filial glances o'er that honoured brow. 

No more around the tranquil autumn hearth. 
Where lov'd forms gather as the day declines. 
No more in solemn joy or gentle mirth, 
That form — that voice — in that lov'd circle joins. 

Far, far away, O desolate abode I 

That once loved sounds from those blest footsteps gave ; 
Ah 1 where is he, for whom each fond heart glowed ? 
The spirit fled, the lov'd form in the grave ! ^ 

Yes, he whose hoary head and reverend brow, 
Deep, holy thought and piety bespoke. 
Whose voice of solemn praises lingers now. 
That in the soul immortal yearnings woke ; 

O holy parent, who thy place shall fill ? 
Who to the household band shall peace restore ? 
Thy chair is vacant, and the lov'd voice still. 
That none shall fill, O never, never more. 

Yet where art thou, O blessed parent, where ? 
In the high heavens, through the Redeemer's blood, 
Chanting high anthems ever glorious there. 
And praise immortal to the Lamb of God. 



48 



LETTERS FROM CYNTHIA TAGGART. 



Letter I. 

To a Lady. 

Middletown, Rhode Island^ 

Jan. IWiy 1835. 
Dear Madam^ 

After having received from you so many 
demonstrations of the most pure and disin- 
terested kindness, and so many evidences of 
the deep and active interest you have taken 
in my welfare, I doubt not but you will 
pardon this intrusion, however unexpected 
and exceptionable it be. I now solicit your 
attention a few moments, solely from anxiety 
to learn something of the state of so bene- 
volent and worthy a friend, to whom I am 
under the deepest obligations, and for whom 
I feel an ardour of affection, that I am con- 
iSdent no language can adequately express. 
Ever since I enjoyed those interesting and 
highly gratifying interviews with you, last 
summer, I have felt an ardent and irrepres- 
sible desire again to hear from so kind and 
sympathizing a friend ; one who has the 
peculiar and happy ability of contributing so 



49 



greatly to the relief of the afflicted, and of 
adapting all her expressions of consolation 
and encouragement so exactly to the state of 
the sufferer ; from whom I have formerly re- 
ceived the most exhilarating and scriptural 
epistles, written in the kindest and most 
soothing manner, at a time when most needed, 
when my heart was overwhelmed, when my 
flesh was exercised with exquisite pain, and 
my soul mourned in the bitterness of hopeless 
grief. Could I again be the recipient of a 
few similar favors, they would be cherished 
with the most grateful affection, and would 
greatly relieve and revive the desponding 
heart of a wearied sufferer. But I do not 
utter this expression of my feelings as a re- 
quest, for I am truly sensible I have no claims 
on your kindness, and that all your numerous, 
unmerited, and unrequited favors^ have been 
bestowed with the utmost disinterestedness. 
But as you have voluntarily written to me in 
the most friendly manner, when a stranger, 
and as it is now so long a period since we 
have heard from you, I cannot wholly divest 
myself of the fear, though perhaps you will 
think it childish, that I have in some way 
offended you, though I know not how it can 
be, as I am certain, if my heart could be 
laid bare to view, there has not one thought 
passed in it respecting yourself from the 



50 



moment I first saw you to the present, with 
which you could be displeased, unless your 
modesty and great Christian humility should 
induce you to disapprove the high estimation 
in which my heart holds you, and ever must. 
But I am not only exercised with fears lest 
I should have unconsciously offended you, 
but lest you should be suffering from some 
severe affliction, either personal or rela- 
tive, and I cannot feel any tranquillity or 
comfort when reflecting on one so inexpres- 
sibly dear and worthy, while in uncertainty 
respecting either. But if neither of the three 
evils I have feared is a reality, a few lines, 
if it would not be repugnant to your feelings, 
in affirmation of the same, would relieve a 
heart susceptible of the tenderest sensibili- 
ties, and alive to the keenest emotions, and 
would add another to the numerous obliga- 
tions I am already under to the best of 
friends, and would increase my gratitude, 
which is now, and ever will continue inex- 
pressible. My dear friend, I hope I have 
not now displeased you by expressing my 
childish fears lest I had formerly done so. 
1 am aware they may be entirely needless ; 
but as I feel some anxiety on that account, 
and more still lest you should be in affliction, 
I could not resist the inclination, though I am 
very feeble, of writing, in the hope of learn- 



51 



ing from yourself that you are still in the 
enjoyment of health and prosperity, and that 
all my fears are altogether groundless. But 
I am confident, even if 1 should have unin- 
tentionally offended you, or if you should 
be in affliction, your true benevolence and 
Christian charity will induce you still to pray 
for so distressed and helpless a sufferer and 
sinner as your poor friend, 

C. Taggart. 



Letter II. 



To Mrs. A. R. Medbury, who had been a 
sufferer by sickness more than twenty years. 

' April 1st, 1835. 

Dear and venerated Friend, 

With mingled pleasure and gratitude I 
perused your second interesting and very 
welcome letter. It is a favor most dear to 
my heart to be remembered, instructed, 
and consoled by the aged and experienced 
Christian, especially those who have passed 
through a series of long continued and trying 
afflictions; but have still, notwithstanding 
the severity of their numerous and protracted 
distresses^ maintained firm and unshaken 



52 



confidence in God, an habitual sense of his 
infinite goodness and compassion, and a calm 
and placid resignation to his righteous will. 
To be made the recipient of epistles emanating 
from the heart of one who has been thus re- 
fined and purified in the furnace of affliction, 
are favors for which I can never express nor 
feel sufficient gratitude. But I am sensible 
it should be my chief concern to endeavor to 
profit by the favors I receive, and to exert 
my utmost efforts to follow and imitate the 
examples of those whom I so much esteem 
and admire ; those who, through faith and 
patience, are prepared to inherit the promises. 
O that it may be thus ! O, my dear Madam, 
in your fervent aspirations for grace, will you 
not remember your poor afflicted friend, who 
is weary and heavy laden, and ineffectually 
panting after rest ? I doubt not but you do 
remember me in your intercession with the 
compassionate Redeemer ; and it is a source 
of much consolation, especially as we find in 
the words of truth, that the effectual fervent 
prayers of the righteous avail much. My 
dear and worthy friend, I truly and deeply 
sympathize with you in the severe affliction 
you have sustained in the loss of an interesting 
and lovely niece, of whom you so feelingly 
and yet resignedly speak. You must, indeed, 
have felt strongly attached to one so young 



53 



and yet so worthy, and must have felt most 
keenly in your debilitated and suffering state, 
the separation from so kind and gentle a 
companion. But your calm and ever thank- 
ful resignation of her into the hands of her 
Creator and Redeemer, redounds to the praise 
of the grace of God through Jesus Christ* 
O how wonderful is the power of religion, 
thus to turn the severest afflictions into the 
choicest blessings, and the deepest sorrows 
into peace, even* the peace that passeth 
understanding ! You also mention, with 
much affection and gratitude, the worthy 
friends of a superior station, who have kindly 
visited you in your afiBliction, and sympathized 
in your distresses; and by whom you have 
been refreshed and strengthened, by behold- 
ing them thus following the example of their 
Lord and Saviour. My own dear family also 
have similar favors to acknowledge, and I 
hope and trust, with somewhat similar feel- 
ings. We have often felt astonishment and 
thankfulness at finding many in the higher 
classes of society so apparently free from 
pride, and so truly and disinterestedly be- 
nevolent ; and our hearts often overflow with 
love and gratitude to those excellent and 
highly valued friends who have frequently 
visited ouV humble dwelling, and poured the 
precious balm of Christian love and sympathy 



54 



into our almost bleeding hearts, among whom, 
one of the most valued and beloved, is your 
dear friend Miss G — , to whom be pleased to 
present my most affectionate and respectful 
regards. I never saw any other person who 
could so readily comprehend, and so deeply 
sympathize in the afflictions of others, or so 
soothingly administer spiritual consolation. 

what so inexpressibly precious as pure and 
holy affection and tender sympathy ! and how 
admirably adapted to ameliorate and refine 
the human heart : and, I cannot but think, 
how much more effectual to mitigate the 
afflictions, and soothe the sorrows of life, than 
the most argumentative and didactic discourse 
ever uttered. I sensibly feel, my dear Madam, 
the kindness of your compassionate wish, 
that the state of my frail and decaying system 
were no worse than your own. Perhaps it 
is not, yet it is in a state exceedingly painful 
and trying ; but, though 1 suffer greatly, and, 

1 think, inconceivably^ from the absence of 
4eep, and from actual and acute pain, yet, I 
am generally calm and composed in conver- 
sation, which leads many of my friends to 
suppose my sufferings much less than they 
really are. But I think it not right, however 
greatly distressed, to be worrying and peevish, 
when it is possible to be calm and placid ; 
and even if it was not wrong, those that suffer 



65 



eonstantly and severely are under the neces- 
sity of being as composed and quiet as 
possible, in order to preserve the little strength 
that remains to them, otherwise they could 
not possibly endure the incessant fatigue and 
exhaustion occasioned by protracted and ir- 
remediable suffering But, as * every heart 
knoweth its own bitterness,' so the dis- 
tresses of the body are never fully hnown 
to any earthly being, save the individual who 
endures them. But, as Miss G — has ofien 
feelingly said, ' it is a consolation to know that 
our Maker knoweth our frame, and that the 
innumerable and excruciating distresses that 
weary and agonize the spirit, though invisible 
to our fellow creatures, are all intimately 
known to Him, and that He compassionateth 
our state, remembering that we are but dusty 
and though we may often receive much ten- 
derness and compassion from the disciples of 
the merciful Redeemer, to Him only we rauit 
look for that which is abiding and unchange- 
able. My dear and worthy friend, that your 
sufferings may be lessened, and your conso- 
lations increased, and that you may have, as 
undoubtedly you will in due time, an abundant 
entrance administered unto you into the joy 
of your Lord, is the fervent desire of your 
sincerely affectionate friend, 

Cynthia Taggart. 



56 

Letter III. 
To a Lady. 

My dear Friend, 

How shall I thank you for all the unequal- 
fed and unmerited kindness you have benefi- 
cently shown a poor and lonely sufferer ! O 
that I could make you some return f But that 
is impossible ! But my heart will ever glow 
with the sincerest gratitude for all the nu- 
merous favors you have so kindly and disin- 
terestedly conferred on one who had no claim 
on your kindness, and in whom there is 
nothing to recommend to your notice but 
misery and helplessness. Surely it must be 
the love of Christ that constrains you to feel 
an affectionate interest in such a one; and I 
ardently desire and fully trust, that He who 
has promised so liberally to reward those that 
succour and relieve the afflicted, will abun- 
dantly reward and bless you for all those 
Christian kindnesses and labors of love ; and 
may you receive grace for grace, and be filled 
with all holy consolation, with joy unspeak- 
able and full of glory. It is impossible to 
express the deep affection, the little inter- 
course I have had with you has awakened 
in my hqart. Your consoling letters, so 



67 



fraught with encouragement and instruction, 
and the purest sympathy, will ever be cherished 
by me as a most valued treasure ; and your 
subsequent kindness in the unwearied inter- 
est you have taken in gaining subscriberis, 
and in many other respects relative to the 
publication of my little poems, demand my 
warmest gratitude, and can never be forgot- 
ten. My dear friend, may I not hope my 
heartfelt thanks for all these unmerited favors 
may be acceptable to you, however inadequate 
they are to the occasion, and I beg you will 
believe that 1 feel abundantly more than I 
can express. You have not only conferred 
your precious friendship on a secluded victim 
of sorrow, but you have gained her many 
most excellent and invaluable friends, whom, 
though she may never see, her heart will ever 
thank and revere. In the reply to the first 
letter I received from you, I promised to give 
a particular account of the nature and efl'ects 
of my peculiar afflictions ; but whenever, 
through the winter, I have had strength to 
write^ I have been engaged in some little 
matter that was indispensable at the time; 
and now the warmer season has returned, 1 
think I shall not be able, as 1 am still weaker, 
and it causes a much more painful effort to 
write or exercise deliberate thought. But if 
I were able, though I think the relation could 



68 



not now interest you, I would feel no reluc- 
tance in describing both my physical and 
mental suffering* to one who is so benevolent 
and generous, and so richly possessed of that 
holy charity that thiuketh no evil. Sly 
mother and eldest sister, Elizabeth, request 
you to accept their best wishes and cordial 
thanks. They remember you with great 
esteem and affection. And, my dear friend, 
may I not request you, through the influence 
of divine charity, to let us have an interest in 
your prayers. 

With great esteem and grateful affection, 

C. Taggabt. 



Letter IV, 

To the same. 

April lUh, 1835% 
My DEAR Miss — — 

Your very interesting and welcome letter 
was handed me by Mr. Gammell, who kindly 
qalled on us, and refreshed us, during his 
short stay, with refined and Christian con- 
versation. The feelings of grateful affection 
with which I perused your most truly affecti- 
onate and sympathizing epistle, and the solac« 



it conferred, I can find no language to ex« 
press^ Your former kind letter, accompanied 
by a packet from an unknown friend, i also 
received in safety, from each of which I de- 
rived much consolation and refreshment. 
Such expressions of tender sympathy and 
aiFectioh, though inadequate to remove af- 
fliction, are indeed precious, particularly those 
contained in your last communication, coming 
as they do from one who so fully comprehend? 
the nature and tendency of severe and pro- 
tracted affliction, and who is so intimately 
conversant with the volume of divine truth, 
and draws from thence such soothing con- 
siderations, so fraught with large and ample 
consolation and encouragement, and so ad- 
mirably adapted to sustain the sufferer, even 
in the furnace of affliction, are favors more 
dear to my heart than all which the unsancti- 
fied world could bestow. I do, indeed, my 
dear friend, esteem it among the choicest 
blessings with which I am favored, that the 
compassionate Redeemer has conferred on 
me the friendship and sympathy of some of 
His most truly devoted people, those who 
most closely and unweariedly follow His holy 
and beneficent example ; and among the most 
valued and beloved of those highly esteemed 
Christian friends, permit me, my dear Ma 
dam, to name the honoured friend to whom 



60 



I am writing. O that my gratitude were 
commensurate with my blessings, both to 
their divine Author and to those benevolent 
individuals hy whom they are received, I 
have indeed great cause for gratitude. Your 
ever precious and thrice welcome epistles 
never fail to console, instruct, and sustain 
my wayward and desponding soul, and how-| 
ever weary and heavy laden, and bowed 
down beneath a weight of accumulated 
aflBliction, those precious communications in- 
variably lighten the load of sorrow, and re- 
vive my drooping spirits, and ei^en infuse a 
tranquillity and peace into my previously 
overwearied and sinking heart, that the world 
can neither give nor take away. O how 
much, how inconceivably much, may a kind, 
intelligent, and sympathizing friend do to 
alleviate the distresses and sustain the spirit 
of the sufferer in the midst of the most ex- 
cruciating and protracted afflictions, by a 
free and unreserved participation in their 
sorrows. Several interesting considerations, 
in reference to the afflictions of this life, 
on which you so ably and instructively 
remark, seem worthy of much more attention 
than they generally receive. That this is 
the only scene in which human beings can 
alleviate the sorrows and administer conso- 
lation to the afflicted, seems calculated to 



61 



awaken the dormant sensibilities of every 
Christian, and to excite in them a fervent 
desire of doing all the good in their day and 
generation, which it is possible to perform in 
so limited a period \ and as the gracious Re- 
deemer not only deigns to accept all such 
kindnesses as are shown to others in His 
name as done unto Himself, but has promised 
munificently to reward those who have shown 
the smallest kindness even to the least of 
His suffering people, one would suppose such 
considerations peculiarly adapted to awaken 
in every breast a deep and abiding interest 
in the sufferings of others, and an ardent 
and unwearied desire of contributing to the 
alleviation of their distresses ; and when they 
are irremediable, to pour the healing balm of 
sympathy into the wounded heart of those 
who are hourly struggling to endure with 
calmness a weight of inconceivable and never 
ceasing distresses, and to say, in sincerity 
of soul, * Not my will, O Lord, but thine be 
done,* Yet, how little assistance many times 
do the afflicted receive from those around 
them in the endurance of their sufferings! 
Do you not think that the precepts and in- 
junctions of the divine Redeemer, in refer- 
ence to soothing and sustaining the afflicted, 
are sometimes strangely forgotten even by 
those who profess to be His followers ? Many 



62 



persons seem to suppose that it is always 
imaginary sufferings only to which they are 
called to yield their attention, and in which 
they are desired to participate, and that any 
degree of kindness would infallibly augment 
rather than alleviate them. But 1 cannot find 
any such caution suggested in the scripture ; 
but we find in those sacred records abun- 
dant evidence, that this mortal life abounds 
with a great variety of real and deplorable 
sufferings. We learn from thence that man- 
kind ' are born unto trouble/ and that * great 
is the misery of man ;' that * his flesh upon 
him shall* have pain, and his soul within him 
shall mourn ;' and the numerous injunctions 
there given to comfort the aflBicted, to relieve 
the distressed, sustain the helpless, and suc- 
cour the poor and needy ; to remember those 
who are in bonds, as being bound with them, 
and to bear one another's burdens, and so 
fulfil the law of Christ ; and, above all, the 
example of the great Redeemer, who inva- 
riably evinced the tenderest compassion 
towards every sufferer, and the utmost rea- 
diness to relieve every species of distress, 
seem conclusive that this (>z?^r cautious spirit 
is not derived from the holy oracles, but 
apparently from a worldly principle of sordid 
selfishness, entirely opposite to those incul- 
cated by the benevolent Redeemer. Un- 



63 



doubtedly there are sufferings occasioned by 
diseases which chiefly afiect the imagination, 
though it is fully evident that all are not 
such ; but even these ought not, I should 
suppose, to be excluded from sympathy and 
tenderness. I have known several persons, 
in such a state, to be driven almost, one of 
them quite, to desperation by the harshness 
with which they were treated by their nomi- 
nal friends and nearest relations. 

But I had actually forgotten that I was 
writing a letter, and to one of the best and 
kindest of friends. But you will pardon the 
digressions dictated by the feelings of a suf- 
ferer, even though they may be both erro- 
neous and ill-timed. 

I will now leave this subject, which occa- 
sions regret, and return, for a moment, to 
one which inspires gratitude. The * packet' 
which I noticed in the commencement of 
this letter, contained two letters ; one from 

Miss G , of Newburyport, a sick lady, 

who has suffered long and greatly ; the other 
from Miss P , of Brookline, Massachu- 
setts, both very excellent and interesting 
epistles, evincive of much Christian sympa- 
thy and affection. I could scarcely realize 
that such productions, so fraught with kind- 
ness, were from the hands of entire strangers. 
The first mentioned lady sent me a litUe 



^4 



pincushion, in the form of a book, which she 
had executed upon her bed of suflfering, and 
a ring from off her own finger, as mementos 
of affection, and as such^ I highly value 
them, how precious, how inexpressibly 
precious, enlarged, and exalted, is the princi- 
ple of pure and holy love ! how far surpass- 
ing any mere natural affection. In this sacred 
principle, though lowly and unworthy, 1 doubt 
not but I am embraced, my dear friend^ by 
you, and by many others,* to whom, without 
this holy affection, I should be an object of 
total indifference, if not of aversion. O how 
inestimable are the privileges of the least 
and lowest of those who are the partakers and 
subjects of this heavenly affection ! I need 
not request you, my dear friend, to remem- 
ber me, or to write to us, whenever it is 
convenient. I doubt not but you will favor 
me with your valuable epistles, which, whether 
I can answer them or not, will ever be more 
welcome than language can express. Please, 
my dear Madam, to accept, for yourself and 
family, the affectionate regards of my mother 
and sister, and of your ever attached, 

C. TaggarT* 

P.S. I regret that I have no verses worth 
your perusal, but such as I have 1 will en- 

* See Schiller's beautiful poem addressed to Freude, (Joy). R. 



65 



close. I have felt so far from writing of 
late^ that I had almost forgotten that I had 
ever written any.* 



Letter V, 
To the Rev. James C. Richmond. 

The following letter, like the rest, is printed exactly as 
written, with a veiry few changes iti orthography. — R. 

May ^d, 1835. 
Dear and Rev. Sir, 

Yonr kind letter of May the 6th, was not 
received till on the evening of the lOth^ when, 
as you will perceive, it was too late for my 
sister to reply to your inquiries, as a letter 
cotild not have possibly been forwarded to you 
ill the short interval that elapsed between our 
reception of yours and your departure from 
Providence — and to have written after your 
arrival in New York was unnecessary. I 
have continued very ill, much as when you 
were here, till Within a few days-^am now a 
little recovered, though it is in an extremity 
of pain I am now writing, and am so op- 

♦ The lines on the Little Flower, those to the Spirit of 
her Father, a Hymn, and PsaJm, accompanied this letter. 



66 



pressed with a faint sickness that every two 
or three minutes my strength, thought, and 
sight, entirely fail me, so that I am under the 
necessity of lying perfectly motionless and 
silent for a considerable time, in order to re- 
vive sufficiently to proceed with my task. 
I should not have written thus particularly of 
my health, but that you may perceive that it 
is not from want of a grateful sense of your 
kindness, nor from reluctance, that I have 
not complied with your request, in giving you 
an exact and minute account of my religions 
feelings from their commencement to the 
present time, but that my distressed and very 
weak state, both of body and mind, render it, 
at present, wholly impracticable; and besides, 
many of the exercises of my heart are such, 
that it is very difficult to define them ; and 
many of my early religious impressions and 
feelings are partially forgotten ; but I have 
still a clear recollection of the emotions awa- 
kened, and the opinions I formed, on my first 
attentive perusal of the Prayer Book. I was 
then about twentyone years of age — I had 
previously heard, (not from my parents,) 
many things calculated to prejudice the mind 
against the Episcopal Church— most that I 
had heard was from the only member of that 
Church I had ever seen— he informed my 
father, with apparent integrity, that it was 



67 



the general and prevailing custom among ths 
members of the religious community to which 
he belonged, to frequent balls and theatres, 
and all places of public amusement to which 
the gay and accomplished votaries of pleasure 
resorted; and that even their most devout, 
and their pastors, considered it no sin, nor the 
least deviation from duty. My father, though 
not then a Christian, was much surprised at 
his relation. He thought such a practice 
evidently opposite to the holy and self-denying 
example of Christ and his apostles, arid at 
variance with the principle and spirit of the 
gospel, and a direct violation of its sacred in- 
junctions. Of course, after hearing such a 
statement from an Episcopalian, I could not 
expect, on taking up the Prayer Book for 
the first lime, to find in its pages the pure 
and undefiled religion of the Bible. I was, 
therefore, greatly surprised on perusing it, 
to find its doctrines and precepts wholly 
evangelical — that it contained much of the 
holy word of God —and the purest, most 
scriptural, and deeply impressive forms of 
devotion I had ever read or witnessed. I 
particularly admired the clear and compre- 
hensive manner in which the most important 
doctrines of the Bible are set forth in the 
Articles, and many other parts of the book — 
the doctrines of the three equal persons in 



68 



the adorable Trinity— the depravity arid iitfer 
helplessness of man — his state of condemna- 
tion and exposure to the wrath of God — ^his 
absolute need of an Almighty Saviour, and 
of an entire change of heart wrought by the 
effectual operation of his Holy Spirit, in 
order ever to be raised from degradation and 
wretchedness to a state of reconciliation with 
God, and of eternal blessedness — were, I 
found, so constantly and clearly brought for- 
ward and inculcated, that it seemed impossible 
they should be misapprehended or confound- 
ed, or but what any sincere inquirer after 
truth must derive spiritual benefit and more 
scriptural views fronpi an attentive perusal of 
them. The various prayers, thanksgivings, aijd 
praise^, seemed peculiarly adapted to ^how 
mankind their own character — to convince 
them of their lowliness and vilenes$ in the 
sight of an infinitely holy God — of their entire 
dependence on Him for every good, both 
temporal and spiritual, and of their especial 
need of the inspiration of his Holy Spirit, in 
order to serve Him acceptably and profitably 
to themselves. The service for the burial of 
the dead, and the communion service, I 
thought surpassed anything that could have 
been composed by man, or selected from th§ 
scriptures for those solemn and deeply iq- 
teresting occasions. Of the service for infant 



69 



baptism, as my judgment was then immature, 
I formed no decided opinion ; but my views 
of the general influence, beauty, and utility of 
the Prayer Book, which were then formed, I 
have ever continued to entertain ; and of the 
small part on which I was then undecided, 
1 presume not now to express my opinion. 
Yet I think, as I have ever thought, since 1 
became interested on religious subjects, that 
it is highly important, and a positive duty, 
that children should be religiously instructed 
as early as practicable, and trained up in ihd 
nurture and admonition of the Lord. But 
it seems hardly probable that these duties, in 
all cases would be conscientiously performed, 
unless they were required and inculcated by 
the Church. My judgment of the different 
modes of baptism was derived entirely from 
an attentive perusal of the Bible, from which 
I was led to conclude that immersion was 
chiefly practised by the apostles and their 
followers. I never read any work in favor 
of this mode of baptism, nor ever heard my 
father, or any one else, convexse particularly 
on the subject. I have heard it incidentally 
mentioned, but no more. All that my father 
ever endeavored to impress on the minds of 
his children and family, was the importance 
and necessity of a studious and prayerful at- 
tention to the Holy Scriptures, and of 



70 



1 



earnestly seeking an interest in Christ, in the 
way that God had there appointed. His 
example, in being himself baptized by im- 
mersion, was all that could, in any degree, 
have influenced my judgment. I have read 
several treatises in vindication of other modes 
of baptism, in which the writers endeavor to 
prove, by the original languages of the 
Scriptures, that affusion or sprinkling was the 
prevailing practice in the apostolic and early 
ages ; still there is no material change in my 
opinion : if the general correctness of the 
received translation of the Bible can be de- 
pended on, I still think immersion the primi- 
tive practice. But as it is the opinion of 
many excellent persons that the mode is not 
essential^ I can readily, m this respect, submit 
my judgment to theirs; more especially as 
sickness, and other causes, may render one 
mode impracticable, other modes would seem 
allowable. From the period when I first 
became acquainted with the value and ex- 
cellence of the services and institutions of the 
Episcopal Church, I have thought much on 
thie tendency of those solemn forms of worship, 
to awaken in the mind of the Christian a de- 
votional spirit, to humble the natural pride 
of the heart, and to purify and elevate the 
affections, and fix them devoutly on God. 
They seemed, also, more calculated to suitably 



71 



and religiously affect the mind of the unre- 
gener£tte, than those devotional services 
which are uttered exclusively by the minister. 
They possessed, in my view, peculiar appro- 
priateness and adaptation to the nature and 
necessities of man, and to the dignity, ho- 
liness, and condescending mercy of his 
Creator and Redeemer, and admirably suited 
to solemnize the mind, and deeply impress it 
with a sense of the immediate presence of a 
holy and heart-searching God, and of the 
pure and spiritual worship due to his infinite 
perfections; and through the grace of the 
Redeemer, to increase that faith which works 
by love, and purifies the heart, and overcomes 
the world. And) at that time, I felt a desire 
of attending the services, and enjoying the 
privileges of that excellent Church of Christ, 
tor which I have ever continued t6 ieel a 
degree of preference, though I was then, and 
for many subsequent years,wholly unacquaint* 
ed with any of its members, with the exception 
of the individual before alluded to. Yet I 
felt, and still increasingly feel, an ardent 
afl^ection for the Baptists with whom I have 
associated, on whose preaching 1 have at- 
tended, and by whose prayers and Christian 
counsel and conversation 1 have been en- 
lightened and consoled, and highly esteem 
and reverence them as a Christian community. 



7% 



I have long since felt convinced, that if 1 
enjoyed a firm and abiding persuasion that I 
were a real member of Christ's spiritual body, 
T should feel no hesitation, but could, with 
pleasure and with profit, become a member 
of either of the three churches, with whose 
doctrines and practice I have had an oppor- 
tunity of becoming acquainted— the Episco- 
pal,Baptist, and Presbyterian : the belief of 
these churches on the most important doc- 
trines of the Bible, and all that is essential 
to salvation, is, I believe, generally consi- 
dered the same ; and those points on which 
they differ, seem, from the conclusions I have 
drawn from scripture, comparatively unim- 
portant, and such as may, allowably, be left 
to the difierent judgments of men, who con- 
scientiously desire to obey their Lord and 
Saviour in all things. And if they were thics 
leftf without acrimonious disputes and un- 
charitable controversies, could not much 
more good be done, and much more in the 
spirit of the gospel, and far less occasion given 
to the enemies of the Lord, to pour reproach 
on the religion of Christ, if Christians gene- 
rally and unitedly directed their efforts to 
convince mankind of their sin and danger 
while in a state of alienation from God, and 
of their need of seeking an immediate re- 
conciliation through the atoning'blood of the 



73 



all-gracious and all-sufficient Redeemer, by 
whom alone they can escape everlasting de- 
struction, and be made meet for the inherit- 
ance of the saints in light. I have often felt 
deeply pained on hearing or reading harsh 
and reproachful expressions from one deno- 
mination of Christians against another^ and 
have wondered much that those who are re- 
deemed by the same precious Saviour, should 
evince no more love for each other, and no 
more concern for those who are in a state of 
unbelief and enmity to God, and consequent 
danger of external misery. Cowper says, 
speajsLing of mankind in general, Vthat breth- 
ren in calamity should love;' how much more, 
it would be thought, should brethren in Christ, 
who are all partakers of the divine nature, 
renovated by the same grace, and members 
of the same spiritual kingdom and all an- 
ticipating the joys of eternal blessedness 
— how much more it would^ naturally^ be 
thought, should such love each qther with a 
pure heart, fervently; that they would be 
pitiful, tender-hearted, /orS^anw^ one ano- 
ther, and forgiving one another in love, even 
as God for Christ s sake had forgiven them. 
Undoubtedly many Christians are actuated 
by this holy and fervent afiTection ; but it 
seems not so generally prevalent, as the sacred 
volume, from whence all derive their hopes and 
happiness, commands and inculcates. 



74 



But I was not aware, until the present 
moment, that I am exceeding your wishes. 
You desired an account of my early religious 
feelings, while, though I have not been able 
minutely to give it, I have been venturing to 
express my feelings at random. Yet 1 know 
that I need not apologize to so kind a friend. 
But I must earnestly request you, as a friend, 
not to make what I have written in any 
degree public, unless you will^r^^ have the 
kindness to amend or expunge whatever is 
amiss, as it is impossible in my very suffering 
state, to collect my thoughts and confine 
them to one subject, or to arrange my ex- 
ressions in a clear and intelligible manner. 

am, indeed, extremely weak, and while 
writing, have daily* felt exhaustion, even to 
faintness. I know not exactly, for what 
purpose you wished this written, but confide 
it to your care, with the again repeated re- 
quest , that you will erase or correct all that 
is inconsistent or unsuitahle before you make 
any exhibition of it whatever, if such should 
be your intention ; which favor will be ever 
gratefully acknowledged by me. 

It is very uncertain whether I can come 
to a conclusion to embrace the ordinances of 
religion. My unfitness is the great obstacle^ 

• It will be perceived, by comparing the dates, that thii 
letter was written in the course of thirteen days, a circum- 
stance which requires no comment. 



! 



75 



which DO human friend, however interested 
in my welfare can remove. Yet I know 
there is One who can remove it, but as I do 
not enjoy the comfort of a clear apprehension 
of Christ, I fear it would be presumptuous to 
become a member of his Church. I know 
not at present how to decide. I desire to be 
directed by that Spirit which will guide me 
into all truth. Dear Sir, will you do me the 
kindness to continue your prayers in my 
behalf, that' I may yet have peace and joy in 
believing. 

Dear and honored Sir, 

Your deeply indebted friend, 

C. Taggart. 
June 5th. 



Lettee VL 
To a Lady. 

My dear, beloved Friend, 

It is impossible for me to give you an idea 
of the gratification and comfort the perusal 
of your interesting and excellent writings has 
afforded me. I have read them till my eyes 
are sightless, and am obliged to desist through 
utter inability to discern a syllable; but I 
wish to retain them, if it meets your appro- 



76 



bation, till I can have an opportunity of 
reiading them again and again; they have 
afforded me so much consolation, and are so 
soothing to ray feelings — particularly your 
remarks on the afflictions of Job, and the un- 
happy addition to his distresses, caused by 
the arguing of his friends from perverted 
principles of judgment, and applying to his 
case what was entirely inappropriate ; and also 
the precious consolation and benefit afforded 
the afflicted by a truly sympathizing and be- 
nevolent friend ; one whose soul is filled with 
a portion of that holy charity that glows in 
the breast of the Saviour, and who can, with- 
out incredulity, enter deeply into the feelings 
of others, and in the fulness of Christian 
sympathy and compassion, participate in thieir 
sorrows, and pour the balm of consolation 
into the wounded spirit of the sufferer. These 
remarks are indeed refreshing to my spirit— 
they are just what I have dways wished to 
find when reading works adapted to the state 
of the afflicted, and are so peculiarly appli- 
cable to my case and feelings, that they could 
not have been more so. 1 feel it a great pri- 
vilege and blessing, that I have been permitted 
to see them ; and I beg you would accept 
my heartfelt thanks, both for these and the 
sweet solace and support I have derived 
from your two last precious visits. I know 



77 



it will be gratifying to your benevolent and 
sympathizing mind, to know you have afforded 
comfort and happiness to a tried and weary 
suflFerer. 

I deeply regret that I cannot have one 
more opportunity of seeing you before your 
departure from our island ; but I wish to be 
thankful for what I have already enjoyed. 
I am of such a singular make, or it may be in 
some measure owing to debility, that I can- 
not enjoy much in conversation, nor be in- 
telligible to others, unless I am alone with 
one person ; then I feel free and familiar, 
and enjoy conversation greatly. But if only 
two or three, even our best friends, are 
present, my thoughts and feelings seem sus- 
pended, and I am incapacitated for any en- 
joyment. Always, from my earliest childhood, 
I derived much more pleasure from being in 
company with only one person ; but since I 
have been so greatly debilitated, it seems es- 
sential not only to my comfort, but to my 
being able to make myself understood. But, 
indeed, this is too trifling a matter to write 
upon, but I know you will have the kindness 
to excuse it. The last morning you visited 
us I deferred bidding you good-bye till I had 
bade good-morning to Mrs. Cutler and Miss 
Julia, as I perceived they wished to go im- 
mediately down, and with the hope that I 



78 



mght enjoy your company a few moments 
longer, while they were speaking with the rest 
of the family ; but as my expectations were 
disappointed, I lost the opportunity of inform- 
ing you what a comfort your conversation and 
letters have been to me, and what a deep 
sense I have of your kindness; not only your 
precious sympathy, but the benevolent inter- 
est you have taken in promoting the publi- 
cation of the little Poems. But I beg you 
would now accept my acknowledgments for 
all these favors, and believe that it is utterly 
impossible for me to express half the affection 
and esteem I feel for you, or half my grati- 
tude to one of the best of earthly friends* 
May you ever enjoy a holy peace in your 
soul and ease in your body, and at last have 
an abundant entrance administered unto you 
to the heavenly kingdom. Remember your 

oyless but greatly obliged friend, 

Cynthia Taggabt* 

My mother and sister's love to you. Please 
to remember me with respectful regard to 
your worthy family, and to the lady from 
whom I received a letter of consolation en- 
closed in one from you. If it would not be 
asking too great a favor, I would request you 
to write to me whenever it is convenient. 



79 



The preceding was written with the hope 
of its reaching you while you continued in 
our neighbourhood, as the last time I sa*w 
you, owin^ to the shortness of the time, and 
the confusion of my mind, I could not say 
much that I wished — and there is still much 
that I wish to say; though I have great 
reason to fear you will be weary of perusing 
it ; but I hope and believe you will kindly 
excuse the inconsistent and singular expres- 
sions of a mind ever wearied and oppressed 
with its tortured and agonized body. 

The excellent and truly pious family to 
whom we are indebted for our introduction 
to yourself and many other excellent friends, 
from whom we have received abundant kind- 
ness, still continue to visit us, notwithstanding 
it must be, we think, an unpleasant task, 
owing to our being entirely illiterate and un- 
cultivated ; but they are filled with holy cha- 
rity and compassion — with the spirit of Him 
who went about doing good. It is truly asto- 
nishing to us, and ever will continue to be so, 
that such a superior family, endued with every 
excellence, and blest with every earthly bles* 
sing, should, notwithstanding the great con- 
trast in our stations, and when entire strangers 
to us, condescend to visit us from the time 
they first heard of us, and participate and 
sympathize in our afflictions, and soothe our 



80 



distresses, and continue to afford us every 
relief, both temporal and spiritual that the 
most exalted and highly favored human beings 
can bestow. Surely while we retain the sen- 
timents and feelings of rational beings, we 
can never cease to feel the most heartfelt 
and overflowing gratitude for such abundant 
and unmerited kindness ; and it is not in the 
power of language to express the great es- 
teem and ardent affection that we feel for 
those devoted and self-denying followers of 
a crucified Saviour. O may they all, with 
you, my dear, precious friend, receive His 
choicest blessings both now and evermore. 

C. T. 

*• I am far from forgetting, neither shall I 
ever forget, the great obligations we are 
under to the worthy and benevolent Mr, D.* 



Letter VIL 

To a Lady* 

My dear Miss 

You cannot conceive how anxious I feel 
that your valuable, I would say if you would 
permit me, invaluable *' Tract,** might be 

* Mr. Thomas Wilson Dorr, editor of the first edition of 
Miss Taggart's Poems. ^ 



81 ' 

published. I think it would do great good 
in the world. I believe there are very few 
persons that consider how important and 
essential it is to have an intimate knowledge 
of the case of the ajBSicted, and to enter 
deeply into their feelings, in order to console 
and strengthen the tried and wearied spirit. 
I think many Christians offer consolation and 
exhortation at random, and apply observa* 
tions and remarks to the case of the sufferer 
that are so inappropriate they cannot fail of 
wounding the feelings deeply. I have rea* 
son to conclude, from my own experience, 
that many excellent Christians visit the 
afflicted with a sincere desire to alleviate 
their sufferings, but owing to having no 
apprehension of their peculiar case, or at 
least a very superficial one, they not only- 
fail of alleviating, but greatly increase their 
sufferings, and perhaps cause the objects of 
their kindest solicitude ,a sleepless and ago* 
nizing night; and sometimes so deeply wound 
the feelings, as to fill the soul with almost 
insupportable anguish ; and this increase of 
unhappiness is caused by Christian friends 
who ardently desire to relieve, and think, 
and are confident that they have said what 
was best and most calculated to afford it ; 
and if they find they have failed to relieve, 
they either attribute it to the perversity of 



82 



the sufferer, or to a causeless depression of 
spirits, wheo it is neither, but solely because 
they do not comprehend the peculiar state of 
the individual with whom they have convers- 
ed ; and as they do not apprehend, so nei- 
ther can they feel a sympathizing participation 
in the sufferings they would fain relieve. I 
think your excellent treatise on the impor- 
tance of Christian sympathy, v^ould be in- 
structive and beneficial to all, and increase 
the usefulness of the best of Christians, as 
you clearly show in the case of Job and his 
friends, that an intimate knowledge of the pe- 
culiar state of the afflicted, as intimate '* as 
finite natures are capable of,'' is essential, in 
order to do much good, and to appropriately 
apply the precious balm afforded in the gospel 
to the weary, wounded soul. I do most anxi- 
ously hope it will be published, solely that it 
may do good- O how I long to see you ! 
There is nothing but what I would willingly, 
gladly suffer, if I might have the privilege 
of seeing and hearing you converse two or 
three hours. I never met with any person 
that could enter so deeply into my feelings, 
or with whom I could converse so freely, 
though many excellent and sympathizing 
Christians have condescended to converse 
with me with the utmost kindness, and mani- 
fested a heartfelt and consoling interest in 



83 



my afflictions, to whom I feel under unspeak- 
able obligations, and love and reverence with 
all my heart ; but you have been afflicted in 
a peculiar manner, and know how, with an 
unusual and sweet appropriateness, to speak 
a word to those that are weary. O may you 
continue, through the blessing of the Lord, 
still to relieve and comfort His afflicted peo- 
ple. It is impossible for language to express 
the sweet relief and solace you have afforded 
my tried and wearied mind. O may you 
ever receive the abundant blessings promised 
to those that succour and console the afflicted 
and distressed ! C. Taggart. 



The following poems, like those '* On the 
Little Flower," « To the Spirit of my de- 
parted Father," &c.^ were written after the 
second edition of her Poems was published. 
See note, page 65. 

PSALM CXXXVII. 

By the rivers of Babylon silent we mourned. 
As the cool shades of evening in calmness returned ; 
Bnt our thoughts lost in grief, no sweet relief find, 
No ease for the captive, no balm for the mind. 

O bitter the tear drops that silently fell. 

As we thought of loved Zion and sighed sad farewell! 

And bursting the sigh from our bosom arose, 

As the wild heaving billow tempestuously flows. 



84 



Our harps, once our joy on our festival days, 
No more shall resound with the sweet warbled lays ; 
In this land of the stranger for ever unstrung, 
Neglected as now, on the dark willows hung. 

While we thought of our country, by tyrants posBest, 
And wept for our monarch in bondage unblest. 
Then our victors triumphant derided our pains. 
Saying, " Sing us your Zion's mellifluous strains.** 

No, never the captive shall sing the pure song 

Of the Lord, while degraded the heathen among ; 

No, silent for ever my voice shall remain. 

And my heart never vibrate with sweet sounds again. 

If e'er her loved song from my harp should be poured. 
May the hand cease to move that awakens the chord ; 
And my tongue in mute silence remorse ever keep. 
If I sing while the loved of Jerusalem weep. 

Remember, O Lord, the derision and scorn. 
That thy children in silence and anguish have borne ; 
When our enemies, shouting, rejoiced in our wo. 
When they saw thy loved city deserted and low. 

Oh ! daughter of Babylon, wasted with grief 
Thou too soon shalt be, and shalt find no relief ; 
Thy children shall perish by vengeance in store. 
And thy fame and thy glory avail thee no more. 



HYMN. 

Almighty God ! enthroned on high. 
Creator, Sovereign, Lord, 

Look on a soul condemned to die. 
Save from thy righteou* sword. 



85 

Thy Iioly precepts, just and kind, 

This soul can ne'er fulfil, 
For sin has veiled my darkened mind. 

And captive led my will. 

My soul was guilty, ruined, lost. 
When first I drew my breath. 

And far from God through life hath past 
Near to the gates of death. 

But hast thou not, for ruined souls. 
Proclaimed thy sovereign love, 

And sent thy co -eternal Son, 
Down from the realms above ? 

His holy soul thy precepts loved. 

And magnified thy law. 
The curse sustained, from man removed. 

Thy justice asks no more. 

O then let mercy melt my heart. 

Create anew my soul, 
A taste of love divine impart. 

And all my powers control. 

Then will this ransomed spirit give 

Eternal thanks to thee. 
And glory to that sovereign love, 

That bare the curse for me. 



MISSIONARY HYMN.* 



Blessed heralds of salvation, 

Jesus' mandate now fulfil ; 
Visit every distant nation. 

And proclaim His gracious \^ill : 

* Written after a verbal account, by Mr. R„ of the de- 
parture for China of the Rev. Peter Parker, M. D. 



86 



To the sterile polar regions, 

To the tropic islands haste * 
Till the Rose of Sharon blossom 

In each wild, uncultured waste. 

. Haste, and bear Immanuel's story 
Where the Pagan idols stand. 
Till the radiance of His glory 
Shall illume each heathen land, 

Till each erring soul benighted, 

Shall the Saviour seek in prayer, 
And a holy hope be lighted 

That shall reign for ever there. 

Where the raging passions torment, 

And where human blood is spilt. 
There proclaim the great atonement* 

That shall cancel human guilt : 

Let His Word of Life be given. 

And His dying love proclaim. 
Till the savage heart be riven. 

And adore the Saviour's name. 

Bear the news of grace and pardon 

O'er each sea to every strand, 
Till you cross the sea of Jordan, 

And behold the promised land : 

Then at Christ's right hand ascended, 

Where celestial joys abound. 
Toil and every trial ended. 

Be with life eternal crowned. 

* It is well that an occasional false rhyme as here, or 
the insertion of an adverb between the preposition to and 
the verb, as in line 16th of page 82, and at the foot of page 
70, must convince all scholars that this wonderful sufferer 
has been chiefly self-taught. 



87 



The two brothers mentioned at the begin- 
ning of this sketch, left Seconet, as the native 
Indians called Little Compton, R. I. on a 
beautiful morning in August, 1841, in order to 
proceed by land, over Rowland's ferry bridge 
to the abode of the sufferer. They were ac- 
companied by two ladies, who had become 
deeply interested in the circumstances of the 
family. The writer had made several visits 
to this abode of aflQiction, after the publica- 
tion of the first edition, and marked the 
changes which years brought over these true 
pilgrims in a valley of tears. Believing that 
the sacraments of the Church of God were 
appointed for all men, and her physicians hav- 
ing declared that baptism, administered ac- 
cording to the rites of the sect in which she 
had grown up, would be fatal to life, she 
gladly consented to receive the same at the 
hands of the Rev. Mr, West, Rector of Zion 
Church, Newport, Rhode Island. 



LETTER FROM THE REV. MR. WEST, 
To Mr, Richmond. 

New York, OcU 16, 1841. 

Rev. and Dear Sir, 
In compliance with your request, I furnish 



88 



you with the following statement in relation 
to the baptism of Miss Cynthia Taggart. 
Yours very truly, 

J. WEST. 

It has fallen to my lot to be the almoner of 
many kind friends of Miss Taggart, and often 
to gladden the hearts of a most distressed 
family by forwarding to them their generous 
contributions. This circumstance, together 
with the interest naturally awakened by my 
proximity to the scene of their sufferings, led 
to an intimacy which I endeavored to improve 
in promoting their spiritual welfare. Fre- 
quent conversations with Miss T. convinced 
me that, by the grace of God, she had been 
turned from darkness to light, and from the 
power of Satan unto God ; and was a suitable 
subject for Christian Baptism. With this view 
of her spiritual condition, I presented the 
subject of her becoming a member of Christ's 
visible Church, to her serious and prayerful 
consideration ; and urged a compliance with 
this commandment as a proof of her faith, and 
an act of obedience, as well as a means of her 
spiritual consolation and growth in grace. 
She acknowledged the duty, and desired to be 
deemed a proper subject of the sacrament. 
It is not necessary, were it consistent with a 
proper regard to the feelings of Miss T„ to 



89 



enter into any further particulars than simply 
to state, that a careful and deliberate consid* 
eration of the qualifications of a candidate for 
baptism, and also of the objections against that 
rite as held by paedo-baptists, led her to the 
conviction of her duty as a believer in Jesus 
Christ. When her decision was made known 
to me, 1 selected an early opportunity to visit 
her for the purpose of administering the in- 
teresting ordinance. It afforded me great 
pleasure to have the presence of the Rev. 
Dr. Tyng, of Philadelphia, who was at the 
time visiting Newport, and who, at my request 
accompanied me. 

Under the circumstances in which this 
hasty sketch is drawn up, called upon as I am, 
away from home, and without being allowed 
time to collect my thoughts, 1 could at- 
tempt no description of the occasion, were 
I disposed to do so. Suffice it to say, 
this afflicted child of God, surrounded by 
the pious members of her family, received 
us as the ambassadors of Christ, who had 
come in His name to admit her to the pri- 
vileges of His spiritual household. She 
was ready ; and the language of the Ethio- 
pian nobleman might with propriety have 
been made her own ; " What doth hinder 
me to be baptized T' The sacrament was 
administered under a feeling sense of God'n 



90 



presence and blessing ; the occasion was one 
never to be forgotten, and I would this sacra- 
ment were received by candidates generally, 
with as serious preparation, and as trembling 
an anxiety to do right before God. Subse- 
quently, though not immediately, her faith was 
strengthened, and her hopes confirmed, and 
although her mind was afterwards thrown into 
an unhappy state of doubt, by the mistaken 
and unkind suggestions of her Baptist friends, 
unfavorable to the step she had taken, I 
believe I am authorized to say, that she has 
escaped that thraldom of prejudice, and now 
anticipates the pleasure of joining, by the 
rite of confirmation, in the full Communion 
of the Church. 



The aged mother died in peace, in the 
spring of 1841. She lived two months only 
after her pension ceased. The writer took 
his little daughter to see these poor people, 
and will not soon forget the beaming welcome 
he received, nor the kiss, bestowed on the 
back of his little girl*s head, ^ lest," said the 
poor old woman, ** lest my cough should 
hurt her." She lies buried by the side of her 
husband. 

Maria's reason has not returned; though 
she speaks more coherently, and sings some 
beautiful hymns. Cynthia still lies in the 



»l 



same condition : her hair, now at the age of 
thirty-eight, is quite white, and her lower 
limbs drawn up close to her body, and shrunk 
almost to nothing. How long she is to re- 
main thus, God only knows. Let us, while 
there is time, do good unto her, who has 
become of the household of faith ; and when 
they and we depart, may we be gathered 
unto our fathers in the communion of the 
Church of God ; and may God hasten the 
time when these afflicted ones, with all the 
forgotten and unconverted millions deceived 
by the False Prophet, or bowing down to 
stocks and stones shall cry, 

*' Worthy the Lamb, for he v, as slain for us." 
Seconet, August 2Ath, 1841, 



SOME ACCOUNT OF SARAH 
PURBECK. 

While residing in Salem, in the year 1833, 
as assistant minister to the Rt. Rev. Alexan- 
der V, Griswold, the venerable Bishop of the 
Eastern Diocese, and now presiding Bishop, 
the writer was requested to visit Sarah 
Purbeck. He was told that the Rev. Rufus 
Babcock had called on her, and nearly fainted 
away at the sight. 



92 



Therefore, in the company of the lady of 
the Bishop, he entered a poor looking house 
in that street in Salem which presents a full 
view of St. Peter's Church. He remarked, 
on opening the door^ a sound, like the regular 
beating of a loom. What was his astonish*^ 
ment, on ascending the staircase, to find that 
this noise proceeded from the regular beating 
of the head of a young woman against the 
wall of the house. I cannot give an idea of 
that awful sight which will never fade away 
from my memory, neither in this world, nor 
as 1 think in the next, 1 sat down in asto- 
nishment and kept silence, expecting every 
moment to see her die. For the space of 
twenty minutes I uttered not a word aloud, 
but said to myself, rather the words were 
forced into my mind : ^ this daughter of 
Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo ! these 
eighteen years !'* 

1 looked at Mrs. G — , and rose to depart, 
with a heavy spirit, mourning for the misery 
of man. The sufferer then whispered to her 
aged mother, who was bent nearly double by 
watching, ^ Will not Mr. R. speak to me?" 
With great eflfort I forced myself to the head 
of the bed, and happened to place my fingers 
between the bedstead and the wall. Just 
then, the paroxysms, which occurred every 
two or three minutes, returned ; her coun- 



98 



tenance was convulsed, her fingers and arms 
thrown forward, intensely stretched, as if the 
very cords of her frame would break, a 
species of tic-doloreux, if I may so express 
it, (for I know not how to convey in words, 
that agony I saw eight years ago,) seemed to 
seize her whole body, and with a violent and 
swift motion her head was thrown forward 
and bowed to the bed ; and then as suddenly 
as if by some hidden and swift machinery, 
it was thrown back against the cushion 
fixed on the wall, (but which it does not 
always touch, sometimes striking the wall 
itself,) with such force as to pinch my fingers 
and give me pain. Sometimes she is thrown 
entirely from the bed by these inexpressibly 
terrible affections of her nerves. 1 tried to 
speak, and faltered out, *' Sarah, I came to 
teach, I have remained to learn ; and, since 
it must be so, and you must suffer, I do 
heartily thank God that 1 have seen you ; for 
never again will I in this world complain of 
God's dispensations to me." Eight years 
have past, and brought their sorrows, but I 
have kept my promise, remembered her, and 
complained not. 

O ye afflicted ! wherever the English tongue 
is spoken, in the name of God, I charge you 
remember this sufferer, whose bodily anguish, 
(for so she assured me,) words are too feeble 



94 



to tell; and pray and wrestle with Heaven 
till you gain from the Merciful Father, not 
only a spirit of thanksgiving that your sorrows 
are so light, compared with hers, but also 
that only sure, unfailing, and eternal conso- 
lation which beamed in the peaceful, sweet 
smile of resignation, as she actually replied, 
in a whisper, to my question, " But can you 
by any possibility be resigned under this heavy 
dispensation?" " O yes," and then repeated 
the words of the stanza on the 14th page of 
this little boftk ; and when I wrote out that 
stanza eight years ago, I had this very suf- 
ferer in my mind : 

*' Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 

But trust him for his grace ', 
Behind a frowning providence 
He hides a smiling face*" 

I knelt by her bedside and prayed that she 
might be relieved from this awful and soul- 
harrowing agony ; and O how fervently did 
1 raise that supplication for this poor daugh- 
ter of Adam ! But if it were not God^s will 
to answer that prayer directly, I prayed that 
if this " thorn in the flesh" could not be taken 
away, that a better answer and a better 
support might be given to her, as to St. Paul, 
" My grace is sufficient for thee," and that ;? 
she might be, in her affliction^ like the patri- ^ 
arch Job, to all who beheld her, a lesson ; | 



i 

\ 



95 



that if she were excluded from serving God 
ID action, she might do so by passion^ or suf- 
fering, that she might remember, 

" They also serve who only stand and wait.** 

And she was such. I visited her in the 
course of that year and always found her such. 
And she is such still. For, seven years 
after these events, in the summer of 1840, 
I stepped from the cars from Newburyport, 
(where with Miss M. D. I had just visited 

Allan ,* also a sufferer from eight years' 

sickness,) went to that street, stopped before 
that same poor looking house, without knock* 
ing, opened the door, and, O merciful God ! 
I heard that awful beating loud as a loom, 
and regular as a clock ; seven years ! seven 
years ! ! of bodily torment. O mortal frame ! 

* When I told this young man that I was afraid when 
Cynthia Taggart's mother died, that they would suffer sore 
distress from the loss of the pension of 200 dollars ; (the 
ffive years expired, and the pension ceased in March, and 
the old mother died in May of this year 1841 ;) *' O,*' he 
replied, " they will be taken care of "—evidently with as 
much inward and undoubting certainty as a man would 
say, ** the sun will set this evening." The prospect from 
his window was desolate enough : *' Are you not weary of 

looking always on the same scene?" said Miss D ** O 

no, for I 've only been at this window two years, and soon 
I am to have my bed placed at the other window 1" O ye 
murmurers. where are ye ? 

t The five years extended to 1841. Thus she lived 
just long enough to receive the whole of the pension. 



96 



thou art not dust, but iron ! and as I write 
this, October 16, 1841, she still suffers, unless 
the merciful God has removed and received 
her this week. But on the occasion of which 
I speak, silently and alone I ascended to her 
chamber, opened the shutter, and stood be- 
side her bed. She had not seen me in seven 
years. " O brother are you come ? I heard 
that thee preached in town last Sabbath; and 
I thought thou wouldst not come ; and 1 was 
sorry ; but I said, perhaps the Lord will send 
thee, and now thou art here." 

" You have adopted the Friends' language 
since I saw you, Sally." '* Yes," she replied, 
I feel more liberty in doing so,* I hope there 
is no harm." " O no !" 1 answered, ^* it's a 
matter of indifference; if you like brown 
bread best, eat it; or white if you prefer." 
She then related the history of these long 
years. The most skilful physicians from Bos- 
ton and elsewhere had tried all known means 
in vain ; her whole spine had been laid nearly 
bare by caustic applications at the expense of 
excruciating agony ; even animal magnetism 
had failed, the physician observing, as she 
told me, with a quiet smile, that hers " was 
an exempt case." Yet still she assured me 
that her inward happiness was inexpressible. 

It was evident, indeed, that in the midst 



97 



of these terrible agonies, she was full of 
Peace that passeth understanding. 

Ye mourners and afiSicted ! Compare your 
sorrows with these facts, feebly but truly 
stated, without a particle of exaggeration^ 
in this little book, and then go your way and 
bless God for your comforts and your happi- 
ness ; and remember that ** Our light afflic- 
tion which is but for a moment, worketh otlt 
for us a far more exceeding and eternal 



weight of glory, ^ 



Arreton, February \st, 1849. 

As it was impossible io procure the letter 
from my brother, the Rev. William Rich- 
mond, Rector of St. Michael's Church, 
Bloomingdale, New York City, which letter 
should have occupied this place, I must en- 
deavour to recal the principal facts which he 
mentions in it. In 1843, before and after the 
consecration of the Right Rev. Dr. Henshaw, 
as Bishop of Rhode Island, I was Rector of 
Christ Church, Providence. 1 had just suc- 
ceeded, against much opposition, in bringing 
into union with the Rhode Island Diocesan 
Convention, that church, being the Jirst 
church, composed entirely of persons of the 



98 



African race^ which had been so received in 
the United States. The city was full of 
bishops and clergymen, who had assembled 
for the consecration of the first bishop that 
ever presided over the little diocese of 
Rhode Island alone; for Dr. Seabury, the 
first American bishop, had charge ot Con- 
necticut also, and the venerable Griswold, 
just deceased^ was bishop in four States, 
which are now distinct dioceses with their 
four bishops. I had invited the Right Rev. 
Dr. Johns, of Virginia, to my father's house, 
and when I succeeded in getting my pulpit 
supplied, the good bishop supposed I left 
Providence and my honoured guest, on Sa- 
turday afternoon, to go on a fishing excur- 
sion, to the home of my fathers, Richmond 
Rock, in the place before mentioned, Seco- 
net. When he heard of the blessings which 
sprang from that visit, he bade me '* leave him 
always to go on similar enterprises.** The 
facts are so remarkable^ as detailed in my 
brother's letter, that I shall not hesitate to 
put some of them here as history, without 
regard to the circumstance that the writer 
was one of the actors. It is, or might be, 
by this time, well known that I have a most 
thorough contempt for that make-believe and 
cant modesty which thinks well enough of 
itself, and speaks the very opposite of that 



99 



which it thinks. But it will be pleasanter 
to the writer to speak of himself still, as the 
younger brother. 

On arrival at the dear old place, which 
never belonged to any whites except Rich* 
monds, a rare, if not unique circumstance, in 
New England ; and where, for generations, 
the old fathers had been buried, he found the 
elder brother at the well known gate. After a 
visit to the old round table, and to all the 
familiar scenes of childhood, on announcing 
an intention to cross over to the island of 
Rhode Island^ (for the whole State is not an 
island, as would appear by the name,) and 
preach, if possible, in some yet unknown 
place, the elder brother assented, but doubted 
whether a congregation could be gathered. 
The clergy in America are not obliged to 
preach in consecrated or licensed places only, 
and all the bishops, as Hobart for example, 
have often oflSciated in the Meeting-houses, 
and sometimes in barns. The writer believes 
himself to have been the first clergyman, in 
that region and in this generation, who, in 
the absence of a convenient place^ officiated 
to hungry multitudes, in the open air, in 
1843, under the shadow of the Catholic Oak. 
May its acorns be planted in many a wiU 
derness, and become great trees ; and under 
their shadow may multitudes of sheep, that 



100 

now wander without a shepherd, be gathered 
into One Fold. This also, as usual, was 
first opposed^ and afterwards followed bjr 
others. But the bishop had always approved 
of the earnest endeavour. 

A ferryman, Amasa Gray, whose name it 
is pleasant to record, was ready for us, when 
our father's tenant's excellent Quaker wife, 
Diana Austin, had carefully provided for the 
outward man. We sailed on the smooth 
arm of the sea, which you may look at in 
the engraving, and landed several miles above 
the cottage. *^ Do not hurt your eyes," 
said Amasa, " as you go up that glen." 
'' Whyr' '* Because it is so beautiful." 
And Glen-Anna is beautiful indeed ! ** I 
will preach in this glen to day," cried the 
younger brother. ** Whom will you have to 
hear you T' rejoined the other. ** O, we 'II 
soon give notice," replied the first; and 
stepping to the next lonely cottage, he said, 
*• My name is R., 1 'm a native of Rhode 
Island : I 'm a clergyman : I intend to preach 
here at five this afternoon. Will you tell 
the people in the next house, to tell the peo- 
ple in the next house, and so send on the 
message." " We will," was the willing answer. 

The elder brother officiated at noon, for a 
very small congregation, in that same little 
•* Union" of sects' building, where the cele- 



101 

brated and eloquent Dr. Channing, during 
his summer visits to Rhode Island, preached 
often in the latter part of his life. 

Near this spot the writer has visited him in 
his retirement, and thenee be sent out to the 
world those words which would have been 
immortal had he seen aod embraced the true 
faith of Christendom. Yet he was esteemed 
great and good, his name by many is almost 
adored, and as he spoke out in life, against 
our Holy Belief, let the writer too record 
his convictions against the dangerous errors 
that ever dog the heels of schism. Peace to 
his ashes ! and war to his errors ! 

An address to the children, was followed 
by a visit to the cottage of Cynthia Taggart. 
We found her in the same state of suffering, 
and the family in utter destitution. Two 
dollars, about nine shillings, were again left 
for two copies of her poems, and on our 
return, for it was several miles distant, the 
usual service was going on in the •* Union 
Chapel ;" the only Union Chapel, by the 
way, which I ever saw, that was not in ruins. 
The elder brother proposed to give one copy 
of Cynthia Taggart's poems to the *• Union," 
and writing the date, handed it to a girl in 
the road, with directions to read, and de- 
posit it in the library. Mark the results 
of that donation ! 



102 

We now entered the long and harrow 
lane leading to the appointed glen. ** Nobody 
is going; you '11 have no congregation," said 
the eldest. ** Look at your watch : it's ten 
minutes after five : they 're all there/' said 
the other ; and on turning a corner, a con- 
gregation of several hundreds, more people 
than you would have thought that region 
contained, were seen neatly dressed, and 
assembled in decent order before the door 
of Mr. Clark, the ** Free-will Baptist leading 
man.^' It is unnecessary here to explain 
the meaning of all the names of the legion 
of sects, unknown in England, which have 
sprung up in America, from the rending in 
pieces of the vesture of Christ, which was 
woven without seam. The English sects 
would be novelties with ours, and ours to 
the English. They are hardly the Church 
Universal, or Catholic, being confined to little 
nooks. 

Before the door was a neat table, with a 
bible and hymn book upon it ; and among 
that decent throng, sitting upon the walls, 
and on the mound or terrace before the door, 
was a** Sabbatarian" preacher, who, his San- 
day having been Saturday, " took," as Mr. 
Clark said, *• the heavy part of the singing." 
My brother's gown he had taken with him, 
and when it was on me, with the anti-popish 



103 

bands, the text was taken, and a sermon 
preached in intended and direct contradic- 
tion of their chief errors ; for they had been 
mostly brought up as Ana-baptists, or Bap- 
tists, or Quakers, and the text was, *' Ex- 
cept a man be born of water and the Spirit, 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 
The false notions in regard to the Holy Sac- 
rament of baptism, as it is rejected altogether 
by the followers not of Christ, but of George 
Fox, and the exclusion of infants from the 
kingdom of God, were exposed, and over- 
thrown. The congregation retired. The 
two brothers went alone to the sea-side. 
The ferryman had been to his own place of 
worship at home, and was now returned, 
and sat in his boat awaiting us. We were 
soon again under the venerated roof of our 
old Puritan and Independent ancestors ; for 
after John Richmond was baptized in 1597, 
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in A^hton 
Keynes, Wiltshire, all the family had been, 
during all those generations between, staunch 
old defenders of the ** Congregational order," 
as soon as it sprung up first, in or about Crom- 
welTs time, out of the bosom of the other 
sect which left the Church. However, old 
Edward Richmond, who was buried there in 
1696, and the rest of the sturdy old Puritans 
never rose up out of their graves, to see with 



104 

wonder, the gown and bands of the Church of 
England go by upon their posterity. 

But during the service there were only 
three, out of three hundred, who responded, 
and two of those were strangers. There 
was one old churchwoman, and only one, 
who, to use her own expression, was ** among 
them as a speckled bird," like a lone sparrow 
upon the housetops. The sister in-law of 
Dr. Channing, however, had long been a 
communicant in the church, and had resolved, 
at her decease, to leave funds to erect and 
endow a church. In what terms shall we 
render thanks to God, that this visit, as this 
benevolent lady has stated to others, for 
she yet remains personally unknown to the 
younger brother, stirred her heart to do the 
good deed, and behold its fruits in her life 
time : and not one but two neat churches 
have now risen by her munificence, and are 
almost wholly sustained by it, and by the 
charity of a devout and wealthy layman of 
Newport, who, perhaps, ere this has taken 
holy orders. One beautiful church rises near 
the cottage of the sufferer, who has thus 
been, under God, the honored instrument of 
building two churches; for had it not been 
for an interest in her and her family the 
brothers would never have made that Sun- 
day visit in June, 1843. 



105 

Mark other results! ''It is not in mantbat 
walketh to direct his steps." Some months 
afterwards the younger brother received a 
letter from Mrs. Robert B. Ives of Providence, 
desiring to know if he could point out any 
way to assist further the family of Cynthia 
Taggart. He had been much abused by 
many for his intense interest in this suffering 
family, and replied that he thought '* any 
efforts made in their behalf would be more 
successful if he took no prominent part in 
them." He wondered at the new interest, 
however. See what came out! Miss Lippitt 
in New York had written to Mrs. Ives. Miss 
L. had been requested to do so by Miss Paine, 
and Miss P. was one of the two strangers who 
were present on that Sunday in Glen-Anna. 
The writer noticed them there ; for these only 
knelt down upon the ground in the prayers, 
and he asked, but did not discover who those 
devout persons were. But Miss Paine who 
had been long and often in Rhode Island, 
was living in the house of the father of that 
young woman to whom the poems were given 
by the road-side. The preacher saw that 
copy of the poems in the assembly, and by 
the sight of that book, Miss Paine's interest 
was awakened in the authoress. She had 
never heard of the sufferers before. She 
visited the family. She has never ceased her 



106 

efforts. Untold kindness and benefits to the 
family have resulted from her benevolent 
zeal, of which that letter was one proof. 
*' Cast thy bread upon the waters, and thou 
shalt find it after many days." The one 
great result which I will here record was the 
placing by those ladies, at an expense of £60 
(three hundred dollars per annum) of the 
poor insane and incurable Maria in the com- 
fortable and admirable Bloomingdale Asylunii, 
to which both brothers at different times, 
have been chaplains, and the eldest is such 
now, ** Go and do likewise." 

Cynthia was confined in her room, at the 
time when one of the churches was consecra* 
ted, and on the following Sunday, the eldest 
brother, with the Rev. Hobart Williams, the 
minister who was sustained by Miss Gibbs, the 
sister-in-law of Dr. Channing and foundress 
of the two churches, administered to her the 
Holy Communion for the Sick. 

It is believed that both this sufferer and 
Sarah Purbeck are yet alive. The ferryman, 
William Taggart is dead. The writer visited 
Cynthia and the two sisters less than eighteen 
months ago, and has preached in the Asylum 
at Bloomingdale, where poor Maria was one 
of the congregation, and had intelligence 
enough affectionately to remember him. 



107 

In conelusion he would say to his numer- 
Otts and true, though new 

FRIENDS IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT: 

This sketch has been here re-printed and 
dedicated to you, on account of the remark- 
able coincidences which caught the stranger's 
attention, when, a few months ago, he landed 
an unknown alien on these beautiful shores, 
where he now belieYes he has gained more 
hearty well-wishers than any msin has 
done in the same short time. Your kindness, 
your enthusiastic approbation, your tender 
sympathy in the wrongs, the most unusual 
wrongs which I was called upon to endure, 
and which I have explained to you in public; 
which in fact resulted in my voluntary and 
necessary banishment from my family and my 
father-land for one year^ I say these things 
make me desire, while about to bid you, 
probably, farewell in this world for ever, 
and to return to my native soil, to leave a 
memento of my visit behind me, that you may 
sometimes think of the stranger whom you 
made a citizen, of an alien whom you took 
to your bosom. May God reward you !* 

These were the coincidences — Legh 
Richmond, a clergyman, had written of the 
* See Note p.^Ho. 



108 

history and the piety of a^suffering woman, the 
* Dairyman's Daughter;" the American cler- 
gyman^ of the same name, and, in by-gone 
generations^ from the same stock in Wiltshire, 
had also written the Rhode Island Cottage, 
of the sufferer, Cynthia Taggart. The Isle 
of Wight is called the ''iGarden of England'* 
and as you have seen, Rhode Island, (the 
island,) was called the ** Garden of America." 
More remarkable still ; the English sufferer 
lived on this Island, about 4^ miles from 
your Newport, and the American sufferer 
lived on that Island, about 4J miles from that 
Newport, where the good Bishop Berkeley, 
once wrote his ** Minute Philosopher," and 
often preached before he was made Bishop 
of Cloyne. 

The kindness with which your friend was 
received in Arreton, and the high pleasure 
which he derived from his public services in 
Newport, and his sacred ministrations in the 
fine old Church at Arreton, must not be 
forgotten. Singular to tell 1 The first child, 
his goddaughter, Katharine Hearn, whom 
he baptized in England, after a nine months' 
residence, was in the Church where Legh 
Richmond sometimes preached ; and the first 
person, poor little Ann King, whom he ever 
buried in Europe, sleeps in the very church- 
yard which the foot of the thoughtful pilgrim, 



lis 

from many shores visits, because Elizabeth 
Wallbridge, the Dairyman's Daughter lies 
buried there. 

At the Dairyman's Cottage he had the 
honour, through the kindness of her nephew 
and his family, of receiving their hospitality 
from the very old fashioned tea-cups and 
other household articles which had not been 
used before, not even once, in this century, 
since the death of the Dairyman's Daughter 
in 1801. 

He will add no more, except this, may 
God unite in bonds of eternal peace the two 
English nations, who are in reality, bat one 
great Anglo-Saxon family, 

Wm. Whitehead's^ 
Arbutus Cottage. 



110 



NOTE TO PAGE 107. 



To justify the expressions used, and the 
facts stated on page 107, the following ex- 
tracts from the report of the Newport Athe- 
nseum Soiree, are made from the Hampshire 
Independent, dated Southampton, January 
27th, 1849. 

The letter on the Isle of Wight is added, 
that the inhabitants of that favored spot may 
know the '* strangerV opinion, written down 
for his own countrymen, without the remotest 
thoughts of its ever reaching the eyes of 
those who were then strangers to him. 

'* In the course of his remarks the Rev. 
Mr, Richmond said : I shall now read you the 
proposition which has been put into my 
hand, and to which I have thought proper to 
add a few words ; that proposition says : — 
' That the diffusion of literature and science 
is one of the best means of raising the intel- 
lectual and moral state of the people, and 
that the broad basis of this Institution emi- 
nently entitles it to the support of the in- 
habitants of this town and neighbourhood ; 
that knowledge and religion are the only 
means by which the Anglo-Saxon race can 
accomplish its high destiny, to civilize and 

christianise the tribes of the earth.' 

# # «c # 



Ill 

** I am no stranger among you as I have 
been called. 1 cannot acknowledge the 
description. This is mine own home. This 
is my grandmother ; but England is no lon- 
ger Old England. The United States are 
now called an old country ; for since so many 
revolutions have occurred on the Continent, 
and so many old dynasties are upset, and so 
many new ones established, we can't call 
America a new country any longer, for she 
is now as old as the Duchess of Gloucester, 
only she, I believe, was born first. Nor do 
I take the title of foreigner. Do I talk 
like a German ? do I speak like an Italian ? 
or do I act like a Frenchman ? No ; on 
the contrary, don't I look just like an old 
Saxon body. Why I speak your old En- 
glish tongue, don't I, just as my mother 
does— across the ocean, as you call it — but, 
as we say, *• across the herring pond.'' My 
father — the descendant of six Yankee gene- 
rations — speaks just the same English as 
my ancestors spoke in Wiltshire two centu- 
ries ago. 

* * * * 

So allow me to say that I hope you 
have found me, not only the thorough-bred 
and full-blooded Yankee you expected, but 
an acknowledged countryman also. When 
you first landed in America you endeavored 



112 

Iq make the Reel Mgin— the Wild Indian — 
say English. He pronounced it ** Yengese f 
feom that arose Yankees,^ and Yankees menu 
Englishmen, and I am proud of the title. In 
the year 1940, it is thought that SOO millions 
of people will speak the English language in 
the United States, a country about as large 
as Europe. And I can prove, by a logical 
process, that I am no stranger, but an En* 
glishnaan. I anj both from John Bull and 
his brother Jonathan, and, therefore, doubly 
an Englishman. But we ought to feel as 
one race; God made man of one blood and 
of one flesh, and 1 have no doubt that the 
Anglo-Saxon rac© is destined to wield the 
world. You and your descendants are t& 
ta&e a fast hold in that world. I hope you 
will make it such as it ought to be. You 
have already got hold of one quarter of the 
dry land, according to the map which appears 
in the new Anglo-Saxon work, and more 
must follow, for what can other nations do 
against you ? Can the French live or but 
exist in Canada ? Oh, no; but the English- 
man can ; he shouldeis his broad axe, and 
he cuts his way to his living. Did the 
Mexican find the gold in California? Oh, no ; 
he was there three hundred years and never 
discovered it; we were there two months, 
and found the gold, which the " Times" 



113 

says is to do so much harm to the United 
States. Well, if there be harm ensue from 
it, you will have the half of it. They will 
send it to Manchester, and to your manu- 
facturing towns, in exchange for your goods, 
and by these means you will get half the 
harm which arises from its discovery. 

# # 3f # 

I believe the Caucasians are the finest 
race of men in the world, and that they 
are descended from the lost tribes of Israel — 
not Jews, recollect ; no, we have not their 
faces; before Christ they were called Teu- 
tones ; but the race has been mixed up with 
Romans, with ancient Britons, Saxons, and 
Normans, until at last they made that thing 
which IS called an Englishman, and it is the 
finest thing on the face of the earth ; and out 
of all this mixture came the men who are des- 
tined to wield the world, and I call this little 
place the powerful little kingdom. As the 
Indians say, the Saxon ** set down here, 
and he sent his boughs to the great western 
river, and his branches over the world ; and 
it is even you who will have to change that 
world, for as to France, why it cannot even 
colonize Algeria. The light hair and the blue 
eyes will do it though ; it is the destiny of 
your race; and you are all of one country with 
us across the ocean ; God has bound us to- 



n 



114 

gether both by blood and language ; what 
God has joined together let no man try 
to put asunder, and he is a traitor who 
attempts it. The Rev. gentleman resumed 
his seat amidst reiterated cheering. 

The chairman, Mr. Abraham Clarke: I 
beg to say that I only used a figure of 
speech when I designated the Rev. gentle- 
man as a stranger among us. I hope to see 
him shortly a denizen amongst us. I hope 
to make him a citizen of the Isle ot Wight. 

Mr. Robert Pinnock proposed *• That the 
best thanks of the meeting should be given 
to their guest, the Rev. James Cook Rich- 
mond, of America, for his able and gratuitous 
lectures at the Society's rooms, and for his 
presence on this occasion.** Mr. Pinnock 
said he should not inflict a speech on them 
at that late period of the meeting. Happily 
the resolution only required the mention of 
bis name to call forth their warmest thanks, 
and if any solicitation of his could have any 
effect, it would be most heartily given [for 
the purpose of inducing their honored guest 
to take up his living among them, and de* 
vote the powerful gifts he possessed to the 
service of those by whom he was surrounded. 
Gladly should they hail the sound which 
announced him as a resident in this beautiful 
island. Sure was he that every person pre« 



115 

sent would cordially respond to the resolu- 
tion, and if ever he should again cross the 
Atlantic, and take up his abode here, all 
they could offer him in exchange would be^ 
their readiness at all times to draw upon his 
apparently inexhaustible stores, for farther 
proofs of his kindness and affection, 

Mr. Edward Wilkins cordially seconded 
the resolution, and was perfectly satisfied 
that Mr. Richmond would carry over to 
their brethren in his country their united 
feelings, and he would assure them that the 
Britishers had no wish to take from them 
any portion of their stars or stripes, and that, 
although it was urged upon America the 
necessity of adopting a different course of 
conduct, the Britishers were prepared to 
meet them at all times in the holy bonds of 
universal brotherhood and peace (applause). 

The vote w as passed with universal cheer in g. 

The Rev. Mr. Richmond : I candidly tell 
you that my feelings are more oppressed by 
your approbation than by my long talk, be- 
cause 1 feel I have not deserved it. * ♦ 
At the end of the report of Mr. Richmond's 
address, the reporter says : We have en- 
deavored to give a faint idea of the address 
of this extraordinary speaker, and we fear 
we have but very imperfectly succeeded. 



116 

We honestly confess that we would much 
rather be employed in hearing the beautiful 
sentiments which flow from his lips and em- 
anate from his heart than be employed in an 
attempt to give a verbatim report of those 
sentiments afterwards. 



The following is a copy of the letter allu- 
ded to by Mr. Richmond in his address, 
which we extract from the columns of the 
Christian Witness^ Boston^ Mass., an Ameri- 
can journal, to which he had transmitted it :— 

Niton, Isle of Wight, 

October 23, 1848. 

Second Letter from the Isle of Wight 

Rev. and Dear Sir, — Fresh from a 
tour over a part of the Isle of Wight, I find 
myself compelled to take back even the compa- 
ratively qualified praise which was accorded, 
four days ago, to Rhode Island, in my first 
letter about Arreton and the Dairyman's 
Daughter. I had then but begun to contem- 
plate the charms of this wonderful Island, and 
had scarcely a distant idea of the treasures of 



117 

beauty and grandeur which it contains upon 
its shores and in its bosom. That you may 
be well aware of the force of what I am 
about to utter, let me say, that the loveliness 
of Naples, and her bay and islands, the charms 
of the coast-tour ot Sicily from Palermo to 
Messina, the most beautiful spots in Italy, 
and the landscapes of Greece and Asia Minor, 
are fresh in my memory ; but I have not the 
least hesitation in saying emphatically, and 
with such a sense of its truth that words 
convey but a faint idea of my meaning, that 
the Isle of Wight surpasses them ally and 
almost everything- else, except Niagara, that 
I ever saw. Words can do no justice to the 
wonderful assemblage of beautiful and sub- 
lime objects which are heaped together on 
the south-eastern coast of this island, and 
that too, strange to tell, within the short 
space of six or eight miles. Talk of the 
sublimity and grandeur of American scenery ! 
Come and see the Isle of Wight! There 
are scenes upon it which cannot be found 
in the world beside, and, therefore, new 
names have been invented to describe themj 
Such are the terms common here, of Chine 
and Undercliff^ to say nothing of landslips, 
of which there have been three, within only 
six miles, and within the last half-century. 
Accompany me, then, in my pedestrian tour 



118 

for he must be a dolt indeed^ who gallops 
through such scenes^ in which the slowest 
foot-pace is too fast ; and I have found it 
diflScult to accomplish even eight miles in 
two days. I have now left a thousand 
beauties unseen, and only feel the stronger 
desire to go over the ground immediately 
again. We will begin with]^the view from' the 
interior, which I partly described in my last 
letter. Carisbrooke Castle stands in sombre 
and massive, though ruined, grandeur in 
the midst of a smiling valley. It is sur- 
rounded with hills, which pour their rills 
into the little river that winds its way first 
through this sheltered vale, and then through 
Newport to the Solent Sea : this is that part 
of the channel between the Island and the 
opposite coast of Hampshire, to which county 
the Island belongs. The castle itself is an 
immense ruin, a mile in circumference, if 
you go rouud by the terrace, which was 
built upon the hill, and next this is a ditch, 
and then a wall, then another trench, and 
another wall. Next comes the old and lofty 
British mound, thrown up perhaps before the 
Roman conquest, and on the top of this the 
Saxons, Normans, and English, have, in 
successive generations, built and fortified, 
and now neglected, a mighty castle. Under 
these walls, you may well imagine the wind- 



119 

ing of the bugle, as the herald approaches 
for a parley, or the stranger for an audience* 
or the pilgrim crusader from the Holy Land 
claiming hospitality, or angry barons con* 
tending for fancied rights, or doing battle 
for faith and honour. There is nothing in 
feudal history with which this ancient and 
magnificent ruin, whose towers yet rise in 
twin-grandeur, may not have been associ* 
ated. Helmeted knight and " gentle ladie," 
holy fathers and inspired minstrels, haughty 
barons and trembling vassals, chivalrous cru^ 
saders, and martyr- kings, have all been here; 
for in this Island, if not in this castle. King 
John secluded himself among fishermen, 
awaiting the Pope's permission to break his 
oath, after the barons at Runnymede had 
forced him to sign Magna Charta; and from 
this same Carisbrooke that unhappy and 
high-spirited King, Charles I., attempted to 
escape for his life. What associations are 
called up by the lofty Keep, and the well 
over three hundred feet deep, mostly chisel* 
led out of the solid rock, before gunpowder 
was invented. What thoughts arose as I 
stood by the very same iron grates, out of 
which King Charles had almost succeeded 
in making bis escape. A vessel was ready, 
a horse near, an escort prepared, and the 
signal given ; but the king could only thrust 



120 

bis head through the bars, and could find no 
egress for his shoulders. Here he remained, 
groaning piteously, and his friends could 
hear but not relieve him ; and at last extri- 
cating himself, with great difficulty, from this 
painful position, he resigned himself to his 
tate, and placed a light in the window to 
show his friends that the plan had failed. 

There was, within a few years, service in 
the chapel, in the spacious area of the Castle, 
which embraces several acres ; but the little 
church is now ruined, and the roof is fallen in, 
though there seem to be no sheep or cattle 
to enter the open doors and desecrate the 
holy place. 

Leaving the castle, and following the wind- 
ing way, through green lanes and hedge rows, 
we pass the pretty village of Shide, and are 
soon in another region, on the furze-covered 
barren of St. George's Down. At the end 
of this opens a wild scene, and the little village 
of Arreton is discovered at the foot of the 
down of the same name ; and the very ancient 
and remarkable church, in whose ground the 
Dairyman's Daughter lies buried, stands in 
the midst of hay-stacks, and barns, and huts. 
But of this I shall write you again. Passing 
the Dairyman's Cottage, through green lanes 
and among ivy-mantled thatched cottages and 
trees, whose trunks are enveloped by para- 



121 

sitical plants of the deepest green, you find 
yourself in an extensive farm-yard, called 
Apse, and a moment after in a secluded wood, 
apparently as wild as our own, until suddenly 
a sweet little cottage, covered with roses and 
other flowers, peeps out upon your path. 
These, and much more than I can speak of, 
with a view or two of a ruined castle, and of 
Lord Yarborough's seat and park at Appul- 
dercombe, or as many people call it * Appley- 
coom/ occur within a short walk. Suddenly, 
on the ascent of a hill, the sea, which you 
had lost for a short time before, bursts 
gloriously and unexpectedly upon you. You 
are soon in the pretty little village of Shanklin, 
and descending towards the shore, all at once 
you come to the brow of a precipice, and 
what a view bursts upon you! a hundred feet 
below, appear the roofs of a dozen beau- 
tiful cottages ; and while you quake for your, 
own safety, though quile secure, you wonder 
that the inhabitants have no fear lest the 
immense perpendicular wall should fall and 
crush them. At the base of the precipice, 
the wide British Channel, like the boundless 
sea, lies spread out be/ore you, now placid 
as a lake, and now lashed into fury against 
the projecting promontory on your right, 
called Shanklin Head, which towers into the 
air, a sheer precipice ; and the waves rolling 



122 

at its very foot, remind you of the scene in 
the Antiquary ; for, at high tide, you cannot 
go round Shanklin {' Halkett') head. There 
is safety, however, on the beach, between this 
and Dunnose point. Far away to the left 
rise the chalky, almost snow-white precipices 
of Culver cliflFs, and from this prominent 
headland, upon which a monument is rising 
to the Earl of Yarborough, comes gracefully 
sweeping round Sandown Bay. You proceed 
towards the shore. A few steps bring you 
to an arch overhead, formed by a tree, whose 
lowest roots are in the crags above you ; and 
on the right is the fisherman's cottage, who 
has built up a wall to save the tree. You 
are now within Shanklin Chine^ But let me 
tell you what a chine is. As you might ima- 
gine, it IS a cleft in the back of a hill, and 
is formed in this way :— A rivulet, sometimes 
swollen with rains, fell, probably since the 
creation or the deluge, down from the top of 
this precipice upon the sea shore. By degrees 
it wore away its channel, and the walls of 
sandy loam on each side fell in, till they are 
now separated, about midway up, a stone's 
throw apart ; and the walls, which were once 
united, rise on either hand, extending up to the 
cascade, about one-quarter of a mile. On the 
opposite side, looking out upon the sea, and 
into this romantic dell, and up its sides, is 



12^ 

Legh Richmond's favourite seat. No wonder 
that he could describe the beauties of nature, 
and compare them with the wonders of grace ! 
Such scenes as these might inspire even a 
dullard, much more the poet; they might 
make an infidel devout^ far more such a saint. 
Below, at the foot of the chine, lives now the 
daughter-in-law (Mrs. Sampson) of * the 
Fisherman of Shanklin Head,' and on these 
sands walked the poor • African/ Far up 
in the air^ on the brow of the head of the 
romantic glen, is perched, in a seemingly 
dangerous spot, on the very brink of the 
precipice, and looking down more than one 
hundred feet into the deep ravine, a beautiful 
cottage. From the shore, through a gate- 
way in the path, you now wind along, through 
every variety of the most picturesque beauty, 
to the little water-fall, which is still at its 
work, deepening and lengthening the dell, for 
it has moved back ten yards in as many years. 
When you emerge from the * chine* through 
a wicket-gate, you may turn to your left 
hand and follow the footpath across a stile, 
leaving the village behind you ; and after a 
succession of views, you descend into another 
dell, * Luccombe Chine,' which is much 
smaller, and as perfect a gem of a lovely dell, 
as the other was of the grand , romantic, and 
picturesque. This dear little glen seemed a 



124 

^ chine' for the children ; and accordingly, I 
found some dear little ones, prattlers Irom 
Mr. Cooper's, who has a charming cottage at 
the head of the dell. They were dressed like 
children, as children always are in England, 
and not in our grown-up, ^ great man and 
womari style. They had with them the most 
perfectly beautiful small greyhound I ever 
saw; and as I sat in the middle of the dell, 
half way up the hill, the dog returned from 
two of the children, and stopped a moment 
by me, as if to ascertain that I would be a 
safe companion^ and then made his way to the 
shore. I now discovered, by the soft song 
that floated up the glen from the sea, that 
one of the little girls had been left behind, 
and the dog was soon at her side, while she 
played with the ripples on the shore, for all 
was calm and sunshine to-day. A ^rot oppo- 
site, a babbling brook, leaping from stone to 
stone,* the architect of the beautiful dell, a 
tower above, a flag-staff, and the green shrubs 
and flowers on every side, would hardly suffer 
m^ to tear myself away from the spot and the 
children. How many sweet children, with 
the blue eyes, flaxen hair, and rose and lily 
faces, I have met upon this Island! I always 
steal a chat or a kiss from the dear little 
cherubs ; they are as bright as the larks 
• $ee Note at the end of this Letter, page 133. 



125 

which rise from these sunny meadows, and 
as sweet voiced as the nightingales and 
blackbirds that warble in these shady dells. 

I cannot pass this charming cottage, the 
home of those children, without calling your 
attention to the snow-white ducks trooping 
over the deep green^ close-shaven lawn, and 
above all, mark that gardener's cottage, all 
covered over with ivy, except where the 
roses are absolutely in full bloom, by scores, 
on the very roof itself. There's nothing like 
that in New England. The very barn is 
covered with vines, and all is in keeping 
with the quiet loveliness of this chosen spot. 

Up the hill we go, along a way that is 
never disturbed by carriages, over the stiles 
and through the gates, and in a few moments 
we are transferred from that scene of quiet 
beauty into one where Nature outdid her- 
self in her wildest freaks. Here begins the 
UndercUff. That does not need so much 
explanation. It means under the cliff ; for, 
from this spot to BlacJcgang Chine, about 
eight miles, there rises a precipice or rocky 
wall, sometimes six hundred feet above the 
level of the sea, larger, longer, more varied 
than the Palisades of the Hudson, and about 
three quarters of a mile from the sea. In this 
breadth is comprehended every variety of 
charm and wonder, from the most cultivated 



126 

rural residence of a noble lord, down or up 
to the very wildest scene in nature. Imagine^ 
if you can, the springs below, and the helping 
sea, washing away the blue clay upon which 
these lofty hills stand, until some morning the 
astonished peasant beholds fields, rocks, trees, 
cottages, all in motion, A part of the hill, 
twenty, eighty, or one hundred acres, cleaves 
itself from the rest, which towers towards the 
clouds, and moving towards the sea, sinks 
down perhaps one hundred feet. Conceive 
the wild work there is here. Here the giants 
went to war. Rocks, trees, everything thrown 
into the wildest confusion, and there they 
stand, as they were thrown at Niton, iu 1799; 
at Luccombe, in 1810 and 1818. There is 
not a possible feature wanting in this wonder- 
ful landscape. Here is a cultivated and smiling 
valley, standing upon the ledge that overhangs 
the sea far below, and frowned upon by a 
giant cliff, rising up hundreds of feet, straight 
towards the sky. You may walk in this 
cultivated valley, and in a moment you come 
upon a huge rock, whose horizontal fissures 
are twin brothers to those which still stand 
above you, but which are now turned at all 
angles to the horizon, or at a perpendicular 
to their old position. Hills covered with 
verdure now, that once fell down from the 
hills above ; huge knolls, that are sunk half 



127 

way along the face of their still unmoved 
brethren ; trees, growing by thousands from 
the cleft rocks, like that solitary one on the 
old road from Providence to Boston ; others 
sprouting out from the side of the cliffs, almost 
horizontally, and still others again, whose roots 
twist around and band the rocks together. 
Here, huge ^^founders^^^ or large rocks, which 
have rolled down from the hills, or been broken 
from the side of the cliffs, and come thunder- 
ing towards the sea ; trees overturned here, 
and rocks stopped in their mad career by 
stronger trees there ; nooks of ivy-grown rocks, 
amid cultivated fields ; everything, in short, 
beautiful, sublime, grand, grotesque, pictu- 
resque ; I say, everything that I can imagine is 
here grouped together. I tried to note down 
the thousand features, but gave up in despair, 
as my friend G — , the German painter, at my 
request, attempted to take down the notes of 
the nightingale at noon-day, in the shady 
Italian groves of Albani, but abandoned the 
hopeless task. How low and distant came 
the sound of the oars in the tiny cock-boats, 
below upon the placid sea; and how, on the 
next day, the misty, and beclouded, and angry 
ocean thundered, and the trees, along the 
sides of the trembling cliffs, that every instant 
seemed to threaten the landscape below» 
roared in sympathy. It was hard to tell 



128 

which was the angry war of the sea lashing 
the beach, and which the mighty wind, tra- 
velling in his strength along the tops of the 
trees, and sweeping with such fury through 
Ihe steep and winding pathway, cut through 
the face of the precipice, that I almost 
trembled at my rashness in venturing the 
hazardous enterprise. And had not the wind 
been blowing in from the shore, I might 
have been swept at one of the little passages, 
from the narrow steps, over the brow of the 
cliffs, into the awful abyss. 

But the happy valleys lie below in their snug 
recesses, and these mighty giants protect 
them, on every side, from every wind, except 
the warm breezes that blow from the south. 
Hence they should be the home of the invalid ; 
and no wonder that Dr. dark, in his work 
on the ** Influence of Climate," says, * It is 
matter of surprise to roe, after having fully 
examined this favored spot, that the advan- 
tages it possesses in so eminent a deg:ree in 
point of shelter and exposition, should have 
been so long overlooked in a country like 
this, whose inhabitants, during the last cen- 
tury, have been traversing the globe in search 
of climate." The Isle of Wight is the garden 
of England and the British Madeira. It 
enjoys constant and refreshing breezes from 
the sea ; the face of the island is dry and 



129 

cultivated ; in open situations the air is clear, 
sharp, and bracing; in sheltered nooks it is 
mild and pure, as the high downs and chalky 
cliflfs are dry> and there are no marshes. 
By less than five minutes' walk you can at 
anytime completely change the air. You 
may breakfast in a deep valley, and in fifteen 
minutes be on a cliff, at the height of 500 
feet above the water. You may see almost all 
the ships that sail through the British Channel, 
and, alas ! when the wild billows are lashed 
into fury, you may see a ship, like the ill- 
fated Clarendon in 1836, dashed to pieces 
upon the rocky shores. Twenty-four out of 
twenty-seven souls, perished in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Blackgang Chine. 

But I have exhausted your patience, though 
I can never exhaust the subject. So I mast 
pass hastily from the cliffs, where I look down 
some hundreds of feet, laying myself along 
on the ground by the perilous edge, or pass- 
ing swiftly on the secure pathway, which 
overhangs the road and the carriages below. 
Below them, again, is another footpath for 
travellers, and on the edge of that precipice, 
far below the road below me, the boys are 
letting themselves down to pull the daws' 
nests out of the clefts of the rocks, with long 
poles and fish hooks. Below them, again, is 
the scene of wild beauty, terror, and grandeur, 



130 

occasioned by the rocks which flew about 
like hailstones in the last land-slip. And on 
ihe edge of this, and far below, still is au« 
other precipice; and here the peasant can 
thrust his iron bar into the earth, and letting 
himself down by a rope, hang in the air, 
** gathering samphire, awful trade!'* And 
below him, again, with unfathomable deeps 
and on a bold shore, roll in sullen majesty the 
ceaseless billows of the everlasting sea. 

Bonchurch village is a beautiful rustic spot, 
full of a variety of charms, perhaps surpassing 
all the rest, and I enjoyed the view from 
Legh Richmond's Pulpit Rock, a lone cliff, 
before 1 clambered up the steep sides and to 
the very top of St. Boniface's Down, and then 
wondered how I ever found my way to 
Ventnor. The beauties of Steephill and St 
Lawrence 1 shall not stop to describe. 

Here comes the little church of St. Law- 
rence, beyond St. Lawrence's well,"^ where a 
grot offers the traveller shelter, a seat, and a 
cool, refreshing draught, running out from 
the ornamented marble. The church was, if 
it be not, the smallest in Great Britain. Is 
there a smaller in the world? 1 could not 
stand up, without my hat, under the eaves. 
J t was twenty-five, and is, since six years ago, 

* See Note on p. 135. 



131 

forty feet lonr, and as the good old clerk, so 
polite and obliging, told me, just eleven feet 
and half an inch broad. The clergyman looks 
as if he might touch almost all his congrega- 
tion from the desk, which is pulpit too, as 
thjBre is not room for both. So he puts his 
surplice on the side of the desk, and stands 
up again in the gown. He is careful not to 
hit his head against the old rafters of this 
sweet little church; for it is quite a little jewel 
of the times of the crusaders, as it was built 
in 1197. When I went into a seat, the clerk 
handed me -a Prayer Book out of his desk, 
and when I knelt on the stone floor, my feet 
extending across the single aisle, he reached 
me a hassock through the door of the same 
place. He was very kind to me I am sure; 
though he says Miss Sedgwick, to whom he 
was equally polite, says in her book that 
* the understanding of the clerk was about 
the size of the church." " I am sure," con- 
tinued the kind old man, " she says so, for I 
have the book at home. 1 gave half-a-crown 
for it," Now, as Miss Sedgwick has had 
her turn, 1 think it only fair to give this good 
old man of seventy-five his turn, too, before 
he dies. If people will continue, for the sake 
of a witty expression, to say unkind things of 
people who are kind to them, they will, of 
course, be quite ready to hear what reply the 



132 

old clerks and others make in such cases. 
Sq, said the old man, with a remark or two 
which I will not repeat, but which was quite 
appropriate, about the hundred new sects 
which had sprung up and produced very wise 
people since that little church was very old; 
•* So if you meet Miss Sedgwick, and you 
find she has any understanding to spare, I 
shall be thankful for it, and will try to make 
room for it all." 

The pen which has already wearied you 
would fall powerless before the loveliness and 
wildness of the way by the road, or up 
'^ Cripple Paihy^ and along the brow of the 
cliff to Niton. Here I thought all had been 
seen ; but when I came to Blackgang Chine^ 
I must confess T was overpowered by a scene 
of awful, almost fearful and terrific sublimity. 
A mighty chasm from the shore reaches 
back nearly half«a-mile, with blackened sides, 
bare of all vegetation, and guarded on each 
hand by a wall of earth rising up 600 feet 
from the dell above the level of the sea ; for 
at the back stands the same rocky face of the 
mountains lost in the clouds. The rain ceased, 
the wind fell, the sun looked out, and a beau- 
tiful rainbow rested one curve upon the 
ocean, and one upon the hill, while the king 
of day, with broad, full disc, sank into the 
mighty waters. I lingered upon the spot 



133 

till darkness fell, and no vision that I ever 
BAW came so near as this to the descriptions 
by the poets of Erebus. Nay, it surpassed 
all my conceptions derived from their descrip- 
tions, as far as it excelled in terrible sublimity 
the Lake of Avernus and the Sybilline grotto ; 
and I am not ashamed to confess, that, how- 
ever difficult the ascent from this fearful spot, 
I did not cease to urge my way onward^, till 
I saw once more the cheerful taper, and 
the enlivening face of man. 

Arreton, Oct. 26th, — I am again com- 
pelled to dispatch this sketch, without reading 
it over since it was written. But though it 
may be full of errors, I will venture to send 
it, as a transcript at least made upon the spot, 
of the feelings with which I looked upon 
some of the beauties of this celebrated, but 
not half-famous enough. Island. I could 
support my opinion by extracts from several 
books upon the Isle of Wight which I have 
seen since writing this sketch. But as time 
does not permit this, I conclude by simply 
warning your readers not to lay anything in 
this letter to the score of my enthusiasm, as 
1 am sure words cannot reach the reality. 



134 

NOTE TO PAGE 124. 
The babbling brook, the architect of the dell. 
Two months after this description was 
written, I was passing by the same way, and 
was astonished by the changes which so 
short a period had made in Luccombe Chine. 
1 was quite sure that I missed several things. 
I had spoken to those children while they 
stood on a little bridge across the rivulet, 
and by a gate which they were about to open. 
There was now neither bridge nor gate to be 
seen ! The children had come from the shore, 
on the side where I stood, and I watched 
them as they appeared and disappeared on 
the pathway. There was now no path from 
this side to the other, and the way on the 
opposite brow was abruptly broken off. I 
had thought of going to the grot, which then 
seemed a possible and not very dangerous 
enterprise ; but now the path to this artifi- 
cial cavern was shaven close off to the side 
of the precipice, and no foot can ever reach 
the pretty, cool grotto again. Probably the 
sides of the chine will fall in until they ap- 
proach very near to the cottage itself. On 
inquiry, I found the changes had taken place 
*• on the Wednesday after Christmas,'^ said 
the cottager's wife. In several other parts 
of the walk I found new rocks rolled down, 



135 

and new slips of land broken away. Apples 
still grow on some of the trees of the orchards 
that slipped down many years ago^ and it 
cannot be doubted that very great changes 
will still occur, which may perhaps again 
shew the chimney of some fisherman's cottage 
peeping up out of the sea ! 

NOTE TO PAGE 130. 

St. Lawrence's well offers the traveller a 
cool, refreshing draught, 

In consequence of various depredations 
and nuisances having been committed at the 
famed St. Lawrence's Well, the Earl of 
Yarborough caused it to be locked up. 
During the summer of 1843, the following 
lines were written in pencil by an unknown, 
and stuck over the said well door, which, on 
being taken down by a gentleman in that 
neighbourhood, were handed to his lordship, 
who was so much pleased with the jeu 
d^espritf as to give directions for the well to 
be unlocked, and it has ever since been open 
to the public : — 

This well, we must own, is most splendidlj plaoed, 

And very romantic we think it ; 
The water, no doubt, too, would pleasantly taste. 

If we could but get at it, to drink it. 

We wish that the person who owneth this well, 
May walk a long way, and get " knocked up ;'' 

And then, if it 's pleasant or not, he can tell. 
When be comes to some water that '§ lockM up. 



136 
APPENDIX. 



A* 



A single copy of the following letter having 
been found, after the foregoing part was 
printed, it has been thought best to insert it 
here, as an additional testimony to the truth 
of some of the facts there stated. 

Richmond Roch, Seconet, Rhode Island, 
28th October, 1845. 
My Dear Brother, 

I am sitting once more at the familiar 
round table, in the parlor chamber of the old 
homestead — the table dear to rae from a 
thousand associations of my boyhood and 
youth. Retiring, for serenity, after the pe- 
culiarly solemn and exciting duties of our 
last Diocesan Convention, I have mused, as 
in former years, by the grave of the old Cap- 
tain, Edward Richmond, who, in 1696, lay 
down to rest upon the soil that has descend- 
ed, through five generations, to our now aged 
father. I have looked forth from the rock 
on this farm, where Colonel Benjamin Church 
made the treaty with the queen sachem of 
the Seconets, Awashonks, that broke up the 



137 

power of King Philip of Mount Haup. The 
striking point of Fogliind,— the grand arm 
of the sea, — the bold shore of the opposite 
Rhode Island,— the beautiful peninsula of 
Sachuwest, — the great and little Cormorant 
Rocks, — the commanding cliff of West Is- 
land, — Seconet Point, a favorite haunt from 
my earliest days of thought and feeling, and 
the mighty ocean, have again excited my 
wonder, and called up the memory of dear 
friends who have admired them with me and 
are now sleeping in the silent grave. I am 
thinking particularly at this moment of James 
and George Foster, two brothers, of Cam- 
bridge, Massachusetts, whose friendship was 
conferred upon me in my fourteenth year, 
and was only interrupted at the early death 
of both of them, by the same disease, within 
a few days of each other, and under circum- 
stances so afiecting. They were friends also 
of our friend Dr.Wainright, of Mrs. Follen, 
of that delightful and regretted man, Wash- 
ington Allston, and of the worthy family of 
Judge Dana. I have never known nobler 
fellows ; their names will cause other friends 
to count, as I now do, the pulsations of the 
heart. I remember that James Foster sat 
up, nearly the whole night, at the window I 
am now looking out of, to watch a storm of 
the ocean, when the surf broke thirty feet 



138 

over Brenton's Reef, and gleamed apparently 
for more than twenty feet above West Rock, 
>vliich rises, as you know, about forty feet 
out of the surrounding water. I stood, but 
just now, beside the peaceful burial place of 
our forefathers, where our infant niece, Mary 
Williams, daughter of our sister Fanny, has 
recently been bid to rest, between the hum- 
ble graves of Edward Richmond and our 
great grandfather William. I reflected, at 
this quiet spot, on the troubles which the 
little one has escaped, and the inheritance 
she has been permitted so early to enter 
upon. I read the appropriate words on her 
lowly gravestone, '' Is it well with the child? 
And she answered, It is well, 2 Kings iv., 
26." I have this moment left the old and 
ample kitchen hearth, and its blazing wood 
fire, whore the excellent Diana Austin, has 
been talking to me of the friends, who in the 
course of the thirty- five years that she and 
her worthy husband have tenanted this farm, 
have accompanied me in my annual visits of 
retirement. 

But you will ask why I am writing this 
io you. I can give no reason, except that it 
suits the humor of the moment and the genius 
of the place* 1 will now proceed to the ob- 
ject of this letter. 1 started on Sunday, the 
12th of October, to attend service at Bristol. 



139 

as it was too rough to ask our friend Amasa 
Gray, to cross over to Rhode Island in his 
ferry boat* But the rain increased so fast 
that I concluded, as I was on horseback, to 
try William Alniy, the ferryman at Tiverton 
Four Corners. After being hospitably re- 
ceived and entertained by him and his family, 
I stated that I wished to cross particularly, 
as there were persons on Rhode Island who 
might be of service to the sick and dependent 
family of the Taggarts, and proceeded to give 
him some account of that family. His sym» 
pathy, and that of his wife and daughters, 
was immediately excited, and although it 
rained in torrents, and blew a gale of wind^ 
he oflTered to take me over in his whale boat, 
which he said, would stand any gale. His 
wife provided me with an old coverlet to 
wrap round my great coat and we crossed 
in safety. I lande 1 near Glen Anna. You 
recollect the service we held at Gien Anna 
two years since in the open air. Now out of 
ihat service God has wrought wonders* I 
wish to note this matter particularly, for the 
encouragemeni of others. Had not Cynthia 
Taggart been lying sick in that region, that 
service, so iar as we know, would never have 
been thought of. The following results may 
therefore, under God, be traced up to her ; 
and it is almost marvellous, that a woman 



140 

bedridden for twenty-three years, so helpless 
that she could not even feed herself, should 
have been made the medium of so many 
blessings to her own family and to the 
Church. Through her, her father, her 
mother, the bedridden Betsy, and the insane 
Maria, her sisters, were provided for, and 
even the little cottage where she and Betsy 
are now lying all day long, purchased. This 
appears clearly from the story you have told 
in the Rhode Island Cottage, and the facts 
that are known to you and me. Bearing 
these things in mind, 1 proceed to trace the 
results of the service referred to in Glen 
Anna, of which Cynthia was the occasion. 
The services of the Church have been con- 
tinued in that neighbourhood, from the verj 
day when you commenced them, to the pre^ 
sent time: a clergyman has been settled 
there, who has already, as you will learn, been 
enabled to build one free church. A worthy 
lady, who forbids my mentioning her name, 
but who had made arrangements, twenty 
years since, to establish the Church, in that, 
her native region, was induced to make the 
inove at once in consequence of that service, 
—to obtain the clergyman, — to provide a 
home for him, — to secure his support, and to 
settle a farm, costing about six thousand 
dollars, on the Church for ever. She now 



141 

intends to build a house of worship, as it has 
long been irj her heart to do, to the honor of 
God our Saviour. Another lady, from New 
York, who was casually, or rather providen* 
tially, present at that service, was induced 
by your mentioning, on that occasion, in your 
sermon, the case of the Taggarts, whom we 
had just visited, to call upon them, and was 
so struck with their trying condition, that she 
immediately set ab^ut obtaining the means 
to provide for Maria Taggarfs support at 
the Bloomingdale Asylum for the Insane. 
Maria is now at that Asylum under my pas- 
toral care ; as you know 1 have officiated 
there once on Sunday for many years, the 
only intermission being the three or four 
years that you had charg3 of it. Besides 
these results, -^— all results under God. of that 
single service, — the family have received in- 
creased assistance in consequence of it, and 
have now friends on whom they may rely in 
every hour of earthly need. All these things 
were passing through my mind, as I walked 
up the beautiful glen, and directed my steps 
towards the dwelling of the estimable woman 
before referred to* 1 will not dwell on the 
rural beauties she has gathered around her 
quiet dwelling place, and scattered over the 
tasteful grounds, nor on the approbation 
which the Church would willingly bestov\r 



142 i 

opon her. I found that our estimable brother, 
the clergyman, had gone to officiate near the 
new church, on the West Road, and would 
soon return to hold an afternoon service on 
tlie East Road, at the church farm house, the 
lower part of which has been fitted up as a 
chapeL I learned, to my gratification, on 
his return, that his new Church of the Holj 
Gross, was to be consecrated by Bishop Hen- 
shaw, on the following Tuesday, and accepted 
the invitation, that he cordially extended, to 
remain, contrary to my previous intention, 
and be present at the consecration. He 
also informed me that there would be a con- 
firmation in the afternoon. I was impressed 
with the conviction, that as the Church would 
not, in all probability, have been there, but 
for our sujBfering friend Cynthia Taggart 
lying for so many long, w^eary years, a short 
distance from its site, and now within sound 
of its little bell, so Cynthia herself would be 
blessed on account of it. It turned out so. 
For after wandering on Monday^ about the 
beautiful grounds and the surrounding coun- 
try, I visited the Church, with my hostess 
before referred to, found it a perfect gem, a 
Gothic gem, rustic fence, diamond windows, 
open roof, chancel, and all. a favorite plan, 
1 am told/ of Upjohn's. From the Church/ 
after assisting my hostess in laying the first 



us 

Prayer Books before the open seats, — there 
are no pews, — I went up to see Cynthia. 
Betsy was Ijing as usual, in the narrow room 
wliere the insane Maria was formerly shut up. 
It has been cleaned and papered, and all the 
little cottage was as neat as usual. Betsy 
took one of my hands in both of hers and said, 
with more than her usual earnestness of ex- 
pression, ** Oh, Mr. R. it is not you, nor 
your brother, nor Miss P., nor the other 
ladies, but it is Almighty God. Since you 
and your brother were first at our old coUage 
on the sea shore, we have been supplied as 
if the ravens had been sent to feed us." She 
spol^e the truth. I went up to the sick 
chamber of Cynthia. Her sister, Mrs. L,, 
saidt Cynthia had been in awful agony in the 
morning, as she expressed it, ^ screaming 
with agony/' There lay the smitten one, 
trembling like a quivering nerve, grown old 
with anguish, her limbs so doubled together 
that her heels rest on her hips, some of her 
fingers' joints so bent down that you would 
suppose they had been amputated. There 
she lay, a sufferer, beyond the power of 
mortal language to describe, for twenty-three 
years, during thirteen of which we had 
known her. But I had come for si solemn 

t)urpose. '* Cynthia, is your faith now firm- 
y fixed on the Saviour ?" •' I trust it is. 



144 

and has been for many jears. My bodily 
sufferings are indescribable, I think they 
increase, but my heart, I trust, is at peace 
with God, through my Saviour." •• T?hen, 
Cynthia, it is now your duty to obey one of 
the last commands of your Saviour, be con- 
firmed by the Bishop, who will be here on 
Tuesday, and receive the Holy Communion." 
** I have been long thinking of receiving the 
Communion, and am ready to do so." *'Then 
on Tuesday, the Bishop will confirm you, 
and on next Sunday we will come and ad- 
minister the Communion." Oa Tuesday, 
after the Consecration and Lord's Supper 
in the morning, and a Baptism and Confir- 
mation in the afternoon, all our especial 
public services in one day, a day to be re* 
membered, the Bishop proceeded in his 
robes, as the cottage was nigh, accompanied 
by three of us clergymen in our gowns, and 
confirmed the sufferer. It seemed to me 
that the messenger must have been to her as 
if an angel had been sent : ** unto the angel 
of the Church of Epbesus, write." On the 
Sunday following, the rector of the parish, 
the Rev. Hobart Williams, assisted by 
me, administered the Holy Communion to 
Cynthia, and four of her best friends,— our 
friend from New York, Maria's friend, being 
present. You, her oldest and best friend 



145 

ought to have been there. We all missed 
you. We left her with the benediction, 
• Peace be with you.** Brother, think of 
the painful state of her mind when we first 
saw her, and imagine what must have been 
our feelings when we heard the voice trem- 
bling with agony, of this gifted christian, 
uniting in our Communion Service. She 
must have learned the service from having 
it frequently read to her. Peace be with 
you, tried one. Our Heavenly Father has 
graciously permitted us to dispense to you 
the best pledges of our blessed religion. You 
have been baptized, you have been confirmed, 
you have received the Holy Communion. 
We teel that our work in this cottage is 
almost done. We can do nothing better for 
you. Peace be with you ! To that couch 
of suffering may heavenly messengers, as we 
doubt not they do, every day descend. Tn 
the midnight vigils which untold agony com- 
pels you to keep, may whispers of blessed 
spirits be heard by you. When, for a mo- 
ment, it is seldom more, sleep visits your 
heavy eyelids, may visions of celestial joy 
ravish your heart. May you die in the full 
faith and communion of the Church, and 
may you die soon, if the will of God be so ! 
And when you die ! But I may not attempt 
to lift the veil of eternity, and seek for words 



146 

to describe the contrast, between the state 
of the sufferer for twenty-three years, now 
lying on that lowly couch, and the mansion 
she will enter, and the joy and brightness of 
the redeemed spirit that will go forth from 
that emaciated body and that humble death- 
chamber. 

Depart, Christian Sister, in peace. De- 
part : In the name of the Father that created 
thee. Depart : In the name of the Saviour 
that redeemed thee. Depart : In the name 
of the Holy Ghost that sanctifieth thee. 
Depart . In the name of the thrice blessed 
Trinity. Depart for that world, where the 
wicked cease from troubling, and for ever 
the weary are at rest. 

Your affectionate brother, 

William Richmond. 

To the Rev. James Cook Richmond , 
Providence, Rhode Island. 



14T 

B. 

CYNTHIA TAGGART. 

Seldom does woman have an opportunity of becoming a 
heroine in action : it is only in the calm endurance of 
afflictions that the strength of her soul is tested; and 
female genius never appears so lovely as when, like the 
trodden camomile, it springs apparently from the very pres« 
sure that threatens to destroy it. 

Look on the mild face of the sufferer represented in the 
picture * For twelve long years the original has been 
confined to her bed, oppressed by a most excruciating dis- 
ease, which for months together has deprived her of all 
natural rest, and rendered the most powerful opiates ne- 
cessary in order to lull her into a momentary slumber. 
The physician's art has wholly failed to reach her case, and 
the tender care of her friends has been exhausted in vain 
to relieve her. And yet, while lying in this deplorable 
and hopeless situation, she has accomplished what will 
entitle her name to a record among the good and talented 
daughters of America. 

The history of Cynthia Taggart is a record of sufferings 
«idured ; but these have been ennobled by pious feelings 
and sublime meditations, and the sighings of her wounded 
ipirit she has breathed upon the harp of poetry in some of 
the saddest, sweetest strains, such as only a mind of a high 
order, and a heart of exquisite sensibility, could have framed 
and poured forth. 

Before we proceed to gratify our readers with a specimen 
from her poems, we must give a sketch of the writer. She 
is a native of Rhode Island. Her father, William Taggart, 
was a soldier of the Revolution ; one of the patriotic de- 
fenders of his country in the times that tried men's souls. 

• See the American Ladies' Magazine, edited by Mrs. 
Sarah J. Hale, Boston. The extracts above are from tb« 
Number for March, 1835. 



148 



During the occupation of the island by the British troops, 
the greater part of the property of the Taggart family was 
destroyed, thus reducing them from affluence to poverty ; 
but when, at the conclusion of the war, they found their 
beloved country free, their own individual losses and pri- 
vations were scarcely counted as misfortunes. Young Wil- 
liam Taggart purchased a farm about four miles from 
Newport, at the south-eastern extremity of the island, 
erected a small house on the side of a hill which descends 
precipitately to the sea, and here he established himself, 
living in almost hermit-like retirement. His wife was an 
amiable and pious woman, and together they labored to 
support, and educate in the principles of pure religion, 
their family of daughters. Cynthia was the youngest, and 
—but we must let her tell her own story ; it comes from 
her pen with a simple pathos, which would be marred by 
any alterettion we could give it. 

* During infancy and childhood I was the subject of 
emaciating disease, and suffered much from pain and de- 
bility ; but, when health permitted, I occasionally attended 
school, during the summer season only, from my sixth to 
my ninth year, and six or eight weeks several years after- 
wards, to study geography and grammar. My knowledge 
of writing and arithmetic was acquired at home, as also 
that of giammar and geography with the above mentioned 
exception. I had likewise some opportunity, which was 
sedulously improved, of attending to the interesting study 
of astronomy, natural and civil history, and of reading the 
works of esteemed authors on important subjects ; but have 
been chiefly debarred, by sickness and indigence, from the 
advantages of education, for which during childhood and 
youth, I longed with an intensity of desire, that was 
acutely painful. But for many years past I have resignedly 
acquiesced in the allotments of Providence ; believing assur- 
edly, that all things are ordered in infinite mercy, and that 
the decrees of the all-wise Creator are righteous altogether. 

* From the earliest time I can recollect, 1 was, though 
not melancholy, of a meditative and retired habit, and 
found much more amusement in yielding my mjnd. to.a. 
pleasicg train of fancy, and in forming stories and scenes 



149 

according to my inclination, than in the plays, in which 
the children with whom I associated took delight. And 
during the whole of my childhood and youth, previous 
to my incurable i?Iness, I derived incomparably more en- 
tertainment and delight from these mental reveries, and in 
silently contemplatmg the beauties and wonders of the 
visible creation, than m associating with my youthful com- 
panions; though I was not averse to society, especially 
that in which I could find a congenial spirit, and such I 
highly enjoyed. My favorite amusements were invariably 
found, when health permitted, in viewing and admiring the 
varied and soul-flliing works of the great Creator ; in lis- 
tening to the music of the winds and waves with an ineff- 
able and indefinable dehght ; in reading hooks that were 
instructive and interesting ; in pursuing, without inter- 
ruption, a pleasing train of thought ; and in the Elysian 
scenes of fancy. My employments were chiefly of a do- 
mestic kind, and my inclinations and habits those of activity 
and industry. I had never the most remote and vague 
apprehension, that my mental capacities, even if cultivated, 
were competent for productive efforts : with few excep- 
tions, it was not till several years after the commencement 
of excruciating illness, that my thoughts and feelings were 
committed to paper, in the form of poetry ; and the sole 
cause of the production of many little pieces, since that 
period, was, that in them my mind found some small relief 
from the pressure of incessant suffering, though, from the 
prevalence of bodily languor, it v^as possible to derive 
only transient amusement from thus occupying my thoughts; 
if longer persisted in, partial faintness and an insupportal)le 
agony of the brain ensued. 

* I was frequently, during childhood, the subject of re- 
ligious impressions, especially when hearing or reading 
of the love of Christ, the depravity of the human heart, 
and the happiness or misery of a future state. But these 
impressions were fleeting ; and it was not till my eighteenth 
year, that any abiding seriousness was produced in my mind ; 
when I became deeply impressed with the supreme excel- 
lence and importance of religion, and greatly desirous that 
my dark and alienated mind might be enlightened by the 



153 



IPplrit of Truth, and brought into a sacred nearness to the 
Saviour of sinners,— that my soul might be renovated, and 
entirely conformed to the holy will of God, and that I 
might live a devoted and useful life. And for a short time 
1 believed I had experienced, in part, what I so anxiously 
desired ; but I have never* derived that peace and conso- 
iation from religion which Christians in general enjoy, 
and which it is so amply adequate to afford. But if I 
have not been the subject of renovating grace, and of those 
holy illuminations that are essential to che divine life, it is 
my earnest and supreme desire that I yet may be, and that 
my soul, in life and in death, may be entirely resigned and 
conformed to the righteous will of the all- wise God and 
Saviour But though I have failed of obtainmg that en- 
joyment and ho!y delight, which the principles of religion 
in ordinary cases afford, yet through a series of the deepest 
afHictions, they have been my sole support. When in the 
bloom of youth, with a high relish for the tranquil and 
delightful amusements of early life, and an ardent desire of 
improvement, 1 was at once deprived of every earthly 
enjoyment, and of almost all that could render life toler- 
able,— doomed to the endurance of perpetual bodily an- 
guish,^ — and, while writhing upon the bed of languishing, 
deprived even of the sweet and soothing influence of sleep, 
the all-important support and restorative of exhausted and 
decaying nature. In the midst of these deplorable calami- 
ties, a firm belief in the doctrines of the gospel has sus- 
tained my spirit, and endued my soul with strength to 
bear, with a measure of composure and resignation, these 
long protracted and inconceivable sufferings. 

* But in order to give a more explicit account of the 
Bature and progress of this afflictive dispensation, I must 
revert to the period of its commencement, which was 
that of my existence ; from which, and during infancy and 
childhood, I was so extremely sickly, that my parents had 
no hope of my attaining mature years ; and though blessed, 
from my sixth year, with a degree of strength that enabled 

* She is now a devout, resigned, and faithful member 
of Christ— 1848. 



151 



me occasionally to attend school, and afterwards to engage 
in active employment, yet my slender constitution was fre- 
quently assailed by disease, from my birth to my nineteenth 
year. ShorJy after this period, 1 was seized with a more 
serious and alarming illness than any with which I had 
hitherto been exercised, and in the progress of which my 
life was for many weeks despaired of. But after my being 
reduced to the brink of the grave, and enduring excruci- 
ating pain and excessive weakness for more than three 
months, it yielded to superior medical skill ; and I so far 
recovered strength as to walk a few steps, and frequently 
to ride abroad, though not without a great increase of pain, 
and almost maddening agony of the brain, and a total 
deprivation of sleep for three or four nights and days 
successively. 

* From this time a complication of the most painful and 
debilitating chronic diseases ensued, and have continued to 
prey upon my frail system during the subsequent period of 
my life, — from which no permanent relief could be obtained 
either through medicine, or the most judicious regimen, — 
natural sleep having been withheld to an almost if -not 
altogether unparalleled degree, from the first serious illness 
throughout the twelve subsequent years. This unnatural 
deprivation has caused the greatest debility, and an agoniz- 
ing painfulness and susceptibility of the whole system, 
which I think can neither be described nor conceived. 
After the expiration of a little more than three years from 
the above mentioned illness, the greater part of which 
period 1 was able to sit up two or three hours in a day, 
and frequently rode, supported in a carriage, a short dis- 
tance, though, as before observed, not without great in- 
crease of pain, and total watchfulness for many succeeding 
nights, — I was again attacked with a still more acutely pain- 
ful and dangerous malady, from which recovery for several 
weeks seemed highly improbable, when this most alarming 
complaint again yielded to medical skill, and life continued, 
though strength has never more returned. And in what 
agony, in what excruciating tortures, and restless languish- 
ing the greater part of the last nine years has been passed, 
it is believed by my parents that language is inadequate to 



152 



describe or the human mind to conceive During both the 
former and latter period of these long protracted and un- 
compromising diseases, every expedient that has been re- 
sorted to, with the blissful hope of recovery, has proved, 
not only ineffectual to produce the desired result, but has 
invariably, greatly aggravated and increased my compli- 
cated complaints ; from which it has been impossible to 
obtain the smallest degree of relief that could render life 
supportable, and preserve the scorching brain from phrensy, 
without the constant use of the most powerful anodynes/* , 

How wonderful is the power of genius ! There are 
thousands of young ladies in our land, who enjoy the 
advantages of education, and society, and health, and yet 
how few among these could indite a strain, which, in all 
that constitutes the beauties of poesy, would equal the 
following breathing of " The Heart's Desire," from this 
uneducated, poor, stricken, suffering girl : 

** Essay, my heart, my aching heart. 
To lisp thy longing forth ; 
Speak thy intense desire to gaze 
Upon the blooming earth. 

All the desires that e'er thou felt'st. 

Compared with this, save one. 
Die sooner than the taper's beam. 

When the quick blast hath blown. 

This, this my panting heart excites. 

With all a passion's jilow. 
That 1 may know long banished health. 
And feel tlie balmy air's sweet stealth 

Across my temples flow ; 

And stray the verdant landscape o'er. 
And press the lawns, and walk the shorei, 
That I have traced long since before. 
And lift my eyes unuained, to view 
The glorious morning sun. 

* Written in 1834. 



153 

What years have passed of anguish keen, 

Since last I heard the roar 
Of clashing waves, or marked the scene. 
Where in the milder sea's deep green. 
The inverted, towersng trees were seen 

From yon delightful shore, 

Or heard the warbling concert ring, 
While echoing joys responsive sing. 
And purling brook, and bubbling spring. 
In sweet melodious offering. 
Their simple music pour ! 

Long since, I watched the sun go down. 

Far in the vermil west; 
And lingeiing viewed his latest beam. 
Till the fair evening star's first gleam 

Shone in the misty east ; 

Then sought the stilly couch at night. 
With sweet rei)ose and calm delight, - 
While Fancy's soft aerial flight. 
In milder gleams of magic light, 
Shed peace upon my breast : 

Soft slumber's downy arms received 
My sinking form, and sweet relieved 
The pleasing task of thought. 
Whilst the gay dream's 
Unfettered themes 
The brain's freed fibres sought. 

Or, deeper in the placid night, 

I watched the flickering northern light, 

Or gliding meteor's bound. 
Or saw the fair moon slow ascend 
Her radiant height, while stars attend 

At humble distance round ; 

Or viewed the silvery hill and dale, 
While the sweet night airs plaintive wail 



154 



Through gilded branches of each tree,— 
Or moan in concert with the sea, 
And sigh along the ground, 

*T is long since summer's early dawn. 

That breaks the shades of night. 
And the gay, smiling, blooming morn 

Have cheered my aching sight; — 

"When songs of sweeter harmony 
Than night's soft chanted melody 

Salute the captive ear ; 
And far soft slumber's bondage flies 
From off the glad, rejoicing eyes. 

And joys unveiled appear. 

'T is long since at the winter hearth. 

When friends and kindred meet 
In serious joy, and playful mirth, 

I held a happy seat, 

And turned, beside the taper's light, 

The instructive pages o'er ; 
Or heard the wise discourse of age; 
Or read with awe the sacred page, 

And felt its quick'ning power ; 

Then joined the joyous vocal strain, 
While fast against the sheltering pane 
Dash the large pattering drops of rain. 
Or wild winds blustering roar."* 

The accomplished writer may express, with great power 
and beauty, sentiments very foreign from his or her heart ; 
but when the untaught strike the harp, the songs are always 
truth» Hence the character and history, even of these last, 
may be as certainly deduced from their productions, as the 
order and genus of a wild plant may be traced by its flower. 
The secluded place in which Miss Taggart had always 

* See Ode to Health, p. 7, for the remainder of this Poem. 



155 



resided, fui^nished images of great power and beauty for her 
peculiar train of thought; — the sea, whose waves had been 
the playm ates of her childhood ; the wind, whose gentlest 
breathings were audible in this lonely place ; the storms 
which swept in their accumulated force over the Atlantic, 
till their whole fury seemed bursting on the hill-side where 
stood the isolated dwelling, - these are the images that most 
frequently occur, when her laboring heart v/ould express its 
feelings of sadness, and hopelessness, and misery. It would 
have been unnatural had not these melancholy impressions 
been predominant in her mind. A humble Christian she is, 
and resigned to the will of her heavenly Father, but nature 
could not, without struggling, always endure the cross. 
And He who prayed in his agony that if it were possible the 
* cup might pass from him,* will not count the sighs of a 
breaking heart as a rebellion against God. 

Two strong feelings divide the musings of this solitary 
invalid; the longing for health and for sympathy. The 
loveliness of domestic affections too, often breaks in on her 
dark mind, like a gleam of sunshine in the prison of Chillon, 
There is one poem, *' The Happiness of Early Years," we 
have read over and over ; it is almost too long to quote, but 
we feel loth to mark out a stanza ; it would be like throw- 
ing away a pearl ; and so here is the whole.* 

There are several other poems in the collection, which are 
equal in beauty to those we have given. The ' Ode to the 
Poppy* has been often published and admired. The nature 
of her disease deprived her of that comforter of the wretched, 
' balmy sleep,' and her poems abound with the pathetic al- 
lusions to this circumstance, which added such bitterness 
to her wo. How full of beauty are these natural expressions 
of feelings which, in her situation, were no exaggerated 
picture of the thoughts which would visit her sleeplesa 
pillow. There is nothing in Young more plaintive : 

** Others to rest resigned ; alone I wake. 
Weary and sad : and silent cast my eyes 
Around the solemn scene ; no voice is heard ; 

• See Poems, p. 84. 



156 



No footsteps move : a perfect stillness reigns, 
Save the light breeze that sighs in softened sounds, 
And plaintive murmurs round the casement lone. 
The pensive stars glow faintly ; the fuir moon 
Has risen on high, in majesty serene. 
How mildly beams her soft quiescent light, 
As if ordained to inspire tranquillity, 
And fill the soul with sentiments benign. 
How far from me is sweet tranquillity ! 
****** 

The soul— ah me, these agonizing thrills, 

These wild commotions and insatiate pains! 

When banished nature's great supporter, how 

Can nature bear this dread conspiracy 

Of ills unnumbered ? Yet, so long as flow 

The faintly circulating streams of life. 

Dear is thy dreary gloom, O Night! to me. 

Though rest hath vanished from thy lingering hours, 

And griefs augmenting cause convulsive starts. 

That make me quickly turn from side to side. 

Fatigued and fainting with the frequent task ; 

Yet thou art welcome still, and thy deep tones, 

That sigh congenial sadness from the wind,— 

"Whether in whispers soft it moan around. 

Or fiercer breathe its strong impetuous power ; 

When the fair moon her aspect mild displays 

Amid the silence of the twinkling stars, 

Or when obscured by thick and sombre clouds; 

Night, still thou ever art more dear to me, 

Than all the glories of the rising day.'* 

But we must leave this interesting volume. Our read- 
ers, who feel an interest in the slight sketch w^e have been 
able to give, will doubtless be glad to learn that by pur- 
chasing the book they will do kindness to the author. 
This interesting and gifted young woman is now deprived 
of her father, and though not absolutely dependent on 
charity, is yet in those straitened circumstances which add 
the fear of want to the pang of sickness. The Poems were 
published entirely for her benefit, and that the work has 



157 



reached a second edition is good evidence that her merit* 
are appreciated. 

We leal confident that our readers will thank us for 
introducing to their notice an example of such pure and 
humble worth. There is beauty in every thing that awa- 
kens the moral sensibilities of our nature, and our affec- 
tions are drawn forth by every object that excites the tear 
or smile of sympathy. We may, however, look on a face 
radiant with health and happiness without interest; but 
the human heart is so constituted, that the appearance of 
sorrow and suffering almost always moves the feelings, 
exciting in the mind those sentiments and reflections which 
tend to make us better and wiser. 

How very few persons live in the unbounded enjoyment 
of every luxury, compared with those who are poor and 
distressed ! and from the attacks of disease, no mortal 
being is exempted. The bed of sickness, like the grave, 
waits for us alL Is it not then of the utmost importance 
to acquaint ourselves with the resources which the mind 
and heart possesses, that we may be prepared against the 
day of adversity ; when the hour of bodily weakness comes, 
we can sustam the energies of the sinking spirit, by em« 
ploying them in thought, in the fields of imagination, and 
we shall then improve our powers, even in deep afflictions 
which seem to preclude all feelings save those of regret and 
despair I This cultivation of the mind would not exclude 
patience or faith;* but, on the contrary, purify and exalt 
them, by training the heart, not only to endure its lot, but 
to comprehend forms of beauty, amid the most revolting 
aspects misery can assume, ani thus to find cause of grate- 
ful thanks to God, who orders ail in his wisdom. 

* We cannot but observe, however, that all other sources 
of consolation to the sufferer, diminish, while the unfailing 
fountain of scriptural comfort, grows fuller and deeper : 
*' When I remember Thee upon my bed, and meditate on 
Thee in the night watches. Because Tkou hast been my 
help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will 1 rejoice." 



1S8 



c. 

*' The poems are remarkable, when considered as the 
productions of a country girl, who has lived in entire 
obscurity. 

** She had time for reflection, Sir; fourteen years of 
sickness. And her father was a man of excellent education. 
Her grandfather was also a great reader, a very great read- 
er of history. 1 have had a great many books of him. 
He was Captain Taggart a seafaring man. He often came 
to Newport when he sailed for my father. 1 was then a 
little girl at school, and the old gentleman, her grandfather, 
lased to bring me books to read." 

These are the words of an elderly lady, to whom I hap- 
pened to show the proof-sheet, as I stopped at her house 
in Tiverton, Rhode Island. They are another testimony to 
the opinion entertained by the acquaintance of the family, 
of their fondness for books. 

" This William that you are writing about was at our 
house twelve or thirteen years ago, and he then sat down 
and gave us a considerable history of his life, but I cannot 
recollect now what he told us. We were then building 
this house, and the history all went away from me, through 
the multitude of business " The good lady then left me to 
attend to some of her household affairs, and in a moment 
returning, said, '* I believe Captain Taggart, the grand- 
father, was not a pious man, for he used to bring me 
novels and such books as he carried to sea with him to read. 
But when his son William was here, I thoujjht he seemed to 
be a good man, though you know, Sir, we cannot judge of 
that; we can only look upon the outward appearance.*' 

Rhode Island, July, 1835. 



159 

D. 

NOTE TO PAGE 120. 
Passing the Dairyman's Cottage. 

Many changes have here occurred in the forty-eight yean 
since the Dairyman's Daughter died. The old trees in the 
front of the house are all gone, and their places supplied by 
some tall, clustering elms, that have grown from the ground 
since the celebrated Tract was written. Nothing remains 
but the old cottage the southern end of which has been 
rebuilt, and in front of which stands alone unchanged, 
except by the lapse of nearly half a century, the venerable 
box-tree, scarcely five feet high, though it was more than a 
century old in the time of Legh Richmond* This box-tree 
has numerous descendants now growing in America and else- 
where. The tradition of its old age has been handed down 
in the Wall bridge family. 

The famous apple-tree, behind the cottage, is gone, and its 
place in the little quarter-of-an-acre garden, is only known 
by tradition, and by a young tree which has sprung up from 
the old roots at the distance of a few feet. The cottage is a 
pretty emblem of rustic peace, and is somewhat more snug 
and cozey, than the similar thatched houses in the neighbour- 
hood. As you approach it from the church, which is one and 
three-fourths of a mile distant, you first see the single window 
of the chamber, in which Elizabeth died. There are only two 
chambers in the house; the door fiom Elizabeth's room, 
which is at the top of the stair-case, leading into the other, 
where I saw her plain little looking-glass, and the old pewter 
plates, from which the 'old time' people used to eat; but 
which are novv put away among the family relics. Here 
was her ancient oaken chest, curiously carved, and the joint, 
stools of oak, upon which her coffin rested. I speak of the 
penetralia of the cottage, because few visitors are allowed to 
see them. T was also highly honored by the bringing forth 
of the old tea-set, which had been put away before the death 
of Elizabeth, but which, in the last century, the good Dairy- 
man and his Daughter themselves had used. There was 
a friendly dispute, before my arrival, between Joseph W. 



160 



and his wife, as to this point, she insisting upon the un> 
fitness of the old fashioned tea>pot, sugar-bowl, &c., for 
' company,' and her husband declaring * it was just the thing 
that would suit IVlr. R. :' so he prevailed, and triumphed not 
a little on mj approval of his choice. He punished his wife 
and daughters for their * new fancied notions,* bj making 
them use the new tea-set, confining the old to himself and me. 
And it was something of an event to drink from a tea-cap 
vhich was last used hy the Dairjman or his Daughter ; and 
so with the tall, queer-shaped glasses, out of which I tasted 
the very best mead, made from honey, which their own bees 
brought home to the garden of these hospitable people. The 
evening wore away in the most delightful and pleasant inter, 
course. Over the mantel -piece, the face of Legh Richmond, 
ill a correct engraving, looked from his spectacles benevo- 
lently upon us ; and the memoir of his life, by the Rev. T. 
S. Grimshawe, and the * Domestic Portraiture,' were shiawn 
to me severally by the daughters, as presents to them from 
the sister and family of Legh Richmond : and for the first 
time, by their request, their names were written in the books 
by my hand. The Bible of the Dairyman's Daughter, with 
the only specimen of her writing now remaining in the cot- 
tage, and left by her unfinished, (*elizabethwa!Ibridge her book 
giv,') was brought to me, with the request that I would 
write my name under hers. The bedstead, on which she 
died, was shown me ; and some little presents were put into 
my pockets, as memorials of my visit, I was requested to 
state, in the ' Visitors* Book,' that 1 bad officiated several 
Sundays in Arreton Church, in the pulpit from which Legh 
Richmond had often preached, and in the church where the 
Dairyman's Daughter prayed and listened. Mr Wallbridge 
said, * you, too, preached extempore, and held your little 
Bible in the left hand ; only Legh Richmond's little Bible 
had a clasp ; I noticed that difference.' 



Printed by R. J. Denyer, 60, Pyle Street, Newport. 









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